One Week With Kevin Pillar

You’ve probably seen what Kevin Pillar did on Wednesday. On the off chance you haven’t, we’ll get to that later, at the right time. Let this much be said now: it was absolutely extraordinary. But it also wasn’t the first Pillar highlight of the season. The guy who was supposed to lose time to Michael Saunders has so far played in place of Michael Saunders, and, it’s been a busy several days.

One play alone can’t explain this: in the early going — the very-stupid-early going — Pillar leads baseball in Defensive Runs Saved, with seven. As a matter of fact, if you set a low threshold of 500 innings, then, since 2010, Pillar ranks third among major-league outfielders in DRS per inning, or per 1,000 innings, or per whatever denominator you choose. He hasn’t played enough for that to be super meaningful, but he’s done enough for that to be interesting, and it isn’t lost on me that a pillar is a stationary building support. Grant Balfour has been a pretty good pitcher. Kevin Pillar has been a pretty good defender.

So let’s review Pillar’s week that was. Everything you see below was contained within Pillar’s most recent seven games, through Wednesday, with the first game chosen because that’s when Pillar recorded his first assist. I noted that Pillar has been busy. Ever wondered what 7 DRS looks like? Wednesday’s catch was just the latest feat. And there have been close calls. And there have been misplays. The antonym of “pillar” is “Kevin Pillar”, apparently, because he hasn’t been able to stop moving around. The man’s made himself noticed.

So far, by DRS, Pillar’s arm has been worth +3 runs. That’s almost half his defensive value, and, the major reason is because Pillar already has three assists. He recorded them on three days in a row, and this is the first of the sequence. It’s not your classic outfield assist. It’s an assist of an assist, with Pillar getting the secondary assist on Didi Gregorius rounding first base too hard. Pillar was originally throwing home, and he wasn’t going to get that guy, but his throw was close enough to the pitcher that it could be successfully cut off and relayed. The thing about defensive numbers: to my knowledge, they don’t know the difference between different kinds of assists. It’s almost like the defensive numbers have issues.

The next day, Pillar recorded his second assist. He cut off a drive toward the gap, then he spun around and threw out Adam Jones trying to stretch an easy single into a more challenging double. This was an excellent throw, and, more, you can see Pillar’s effort level even though the score at this point was 10-1 and I don’t even know when in this sequence Pillar became aware that Jones had rounded. Pillar busting his ass in a lopsided game? This isn’t the last you’ll see of that.

Apparently I went out of order. In the third inning, Pillar gave Adam Jones a double on what should’ve been a single. In the fifth inning, Pillar gave Jones a single and an out on what should’ve been a double. So, this happened earlier than the play above it, but this goes to show that even though Pillar has been great recently, he hasn’t been perfect. Adrian Gonzalez has a wOBA of .702. He’s made 17 outs! No one gets to be great all the time. Sometimes you slide and fall on your butt in front of tens of thousands of people.*

(* not you, specifically.)

Before Kevin Pillar made a sensational, homer-saving catch in a blowout in Toronto, he made a sensational, homer-saving catch in a blowout in Baltimore. Examine these circumstances: bases empty, sixth inning, 11-2 lead. Kevin Pillar flew into the fence at complete full speed running down a baseball that barely would’ve shifted the win expectancy had it been allowed to come down un-gloved. It’s both an amazing and completely unnecessary highlight-reel catch, and this is further evidence that baseball players don’t know how to turn it down when a game gets out of hand. Especially the ones fighting for jobs. Every chance is important when you never feel secure.

Pillar’s third assist in three days. This was not what I expected this to look like, although I was given a clue from the play-by-play:

Flyball: LF-2B/Forceout at 2B (Deep SS)

It wasn’t even a clever ploy to eliminate a faster runner. The guy Pillar threw out: Caleb Joseph. The guy Pillar allowed to reach: Alejandro De Aza. This play was made by the current league leader in Defensive Runs Saved. This play was made by the guy who’s completed perhaps the two best outfield catches on the year. This is a whole post of hashtag-baseball.

Here’s a catch that mattered, with two down in the seventh of a one-run game. Much of the time, that’s a single; some of the time, that’s a double, and Adam Jones runs well. I don’t know if there’s anything remarkable about this, other than it just being a remarkable catch. It’s an unremarkable remarkable catch. Ok

This was a foul pop that hung up for a while, but Pillar wouldn’t have known it was foul off the bat, and additionally, he was playing deep, so he had a hell of a long way to run. He closed in a hurry, sacrificed his body, and made the play, even though the ground essentially tore his glove off his hand. The glove came off, but the ball didn’t come out. This is an era of particularly athletic corner outfielders, so I don’t know if I’ve adjusted for how good defense has gotten these days, but this still strikes me as a play not too many guys can make. Maybe I’ve watched too much Raul Ibanez.

Nothing happened here. The runner on second didn’t advance, and the runner on third was going to score no matter what. So, no negative statistical points for Kevin Pillar on this throw. I just included it because it was a bad throw. I don’t…really…know…what he was trying to do. If he was trying to jeopardize a teammate’s oblique, then, mission accomplished.

This is a remarkable defensive play that still resulted in a clean double for the hitter. I’ve long been fascinated by awesome defensive plays that nevertheless don’t result in any outs, and while Pillar didn’t do anything spectacular here, you can see him move to quickly cut off the ball, and then make an extremely strong throw to second base to nearly gun down the runner. Maybe the only thing Pillar could’ve done better would’ve been to throw the ball about one foot lower, but I think the runner still would’ve been safe. The execution was basically perfect. It just all happened a split-second too slow. This is an excellent non-assist, to partially make up for the earlier stupid assist.

No catch. Just a strike. But it should be clear by now that Kevin Pillar plays the game with utter disregard for his own body. Kevin Pillar has been playing left field because the would-be regular left fielder injured himself on a sprinkler. Kevin Pillar is the left fielder who isn’t hurt.

And that’s it. That’s a week. It started with a secondary assist on Didi Gregorius at first base, and it ended with some Spider-Man shit in an eight-run game. This is the play that has gotten everybody talking about Kevin Pillar, but really it was just the culmination of an incredibly active seven days, during which Pillar mostly looked tremendous, and occasionally looked clumsy. This play wasn’t impossible — obviously — but it was made perfectly, and timed perfectly, and this is probably one of the ten or so best catches in the history of the franchise. That’s just a straight-up guess on my part, but I can’t imagine it gets much better. I just want to give myself some margin of error.

In just one week of play, Kevin Pillar sacrificed his body on several occasions, playing like a guy who doesn’t want to give up his job when Saunders returns to health. That’s going to happen to a large extent regardless, because Saunders is also deserving of time, but it could at least be said that Saunders hasn’t been missed too badly. Pillar is your current league leader in Defensive Runs Saved, and, also, the past week, he’s slugged .519. I don’t know how many other times we’ll be captivated by Kevin Pillar, but there’s no taking this stretch away. He’s always going to have what he did.