What’s their not to like about Patrick Bailey? Since coming up to the majors, the 24-year-old backstop has showed the steel of a veteran and has been trusted by veterans to call games for them.
Oh, and he’s been hitting the ball better than anyone expected, batting .329 and showing a tendency to make life hard on pitchers by battling and working long counts.
That’s without mentioning his incredible talent for foot-blocking the plate on throws home, that’s netted key outs a the plate.
Farhan Zaidi, obviously, is a fan. He joined Tolbert and Copes on Thursday and discussed what he’s seen from Bailey that’s impressed him.
His ability to call games for those experienced pitchers has been a revelation, and Zaidi thinks it’s something that becomes a self-sustaining engine for high confidence in the battery. He said that Bailey’s demeanor is a trait he shares with the elite catchers in baseball.
It’s really a sort of positively reinforcing cycle. When pitchers have that kind of confidence in the catchers, they’re going to pitch better, that’s going to create more confidence. And he seems to be benefiting from that as well.
So I definitely think he’s a guy who has got some of that same demeanor as some of the great catchers in the game who are able to slow things down. He’s definitely a really calming presence behind the plate.
And I just can’t emphasize enough, he really does his homework and his preparation beforehand. And that’s really what enables you to make adjustments on the fly, when you have a firm grounding to start with.
On the other side of the ball, Zaidi admitted he’s been a little surprised.
When the Giants called Bailey up, they didn’t expect him to be confused at the plate, but to be batting .329 with 17 RBI and 3 home runs over just 20 games.
“Pat’s really exceeded expectations with his offense,” Farhan said. “You can see the patience and power he has. I wouldn’t have guessed that he’d be hitting over .300 at this point.
“When we brought him up, we were thinking about some other options out there, some veterans who were free agents who were available, and we just felt like this guy knows our pitchers, we know we’re gonna get high-end defense from him and he’ll figure it out with a bat. And so, having the defense lead when you call these guys up is a huge deal.”
The Giants will lean on Bailey this weekend for an always-intense three-game split with the Dodgers in Los Angeles. San Francisco (36-32) currently sits 2.5 games back of the Dodgers (39-30) in the NL West.
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