New dad Reynolds fuels Bucs' balanced win

PITTSBURGH -- Bryan Reynolds rounded second base, jogged toward third, then put his hands together and rocked his arms from side to side, as if he were rocking a baby to sleep. Yes, Reynolds tapped into some “dad strength” in his return from the paternity list on Thursday afternoon.

On Monday, Reynolds’ wife, Blair, gave birth to the couple’s first child, Reese. Three days later, Reynolds celebrated the arrival of his new son by blasting a three-run homer in the Pirates’ 6-2 win over the Cubs at PNC Park.

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“I felt good out there,” Reynolds said afterward. “But the homer you’ve got to attribute to dad strength, for sure.”

Reynolds came to the plate in the third with two on, two outs and the Pirates down, 2-1. He took two curveballs and a changeup from right-hander Alec Mills to get ahead in the count, then unloaded on a changeup down near his knees, launching it 397 feet into the tarped-over right-field seats. The Pirates held the lead Reynolds gave them the rest of the way, winning for just the 11th time in 35 games and for the first time in six chances against the Cubs this season.

“It’s awesome to see. It's a weird thing; once you have a kid, all of a sudden ..." manager Derek Shelton said. “I thought he took good at-bats throughout the day. ... Any time you get your first homer after [having] a kid, it's an exciting thing.”

Reynolds looked into the dugout, did his new-dad celebration and saw shortstop Kevin Newman flashing it right back at him. Reynolds said he couldn’t remember who first suggested he pretend to hold a baby in his first game back, but he liked the idea and ran with it. He even did it at second base after his first hit of the day.

Will it stick around?

“TBD,” Reynolds said. “We’ll see. We’ll see. Let it be organic.”

With his homer and the 109.1-mph double he ripped to right field in his first at-bat, Reynolds recorded just his seventh multihit game of the season. During his breakout rookie campaign, Reynolds had at least two hits in 44 of his 134 games. This has been a different kind of season for the switch-hitting left fielder, who’s hit .300 or better everywhere he’s played. Even after Thursday’s performance, he is still batting just .196 with a .642 OPS.

But perhaps the arrival of Reese, and the chance to reset his season, will get Reynolds back to being his old self with a little “dad strength” thrown in for good measure.

“I don't know if he needed a break,” Shelton said. “The fact that you're awaiting your first child, that can put pressure on you. So maybe having the baby, knowing his wife’s good and the baby’s good, it makes you breathe a little bit. Today, we saw looseness that you guys saw in Bryan Reynolds all last year.”

Reynolds left the Pirates before Sunday’s game in Milwaukee, rushing back to Pittsburgh to be with Blair. He arrived around 2 p.m. ET on Sunday, and Reese was born 13 hours later. Reynolds estimated that he and Blair got about an hour of sleep on Sunday night, and Reese didn’t sleep at all the first night the family returned home.

On Wednesday afternoon, two days after Reese was born, Pittsburgh activated Reynolds from the paternity list. Reynolds didn’t play Wednesday night, but Reese slept better and his dad was back in the lineup for Thursday’s series finale.

"That was awesome. Dad strength is a real thing, I guess,” starter JT Brubaker said. “Pretty awesome to see him hit a home run in his first game back. Double, home run. It was fun to watch. He just looked confident, in my opinion."

So, too, did Brubaker. The right-hander picked up his first career win for Pittsburgh, striking out five while allowing two runs (one earned) over five innings. The rookie pitched his way out of a jam in the third inning, when an Ian Happ double and a couple mistakes by third baseman JT Riddle left him with two runners in scoring position and one out. Brubaker responded by striking out Javier Báez and Kyle Schwarber to end the inning.

"Really, it was just attack mode. It was a limit-damage mode,” Brubaker said. “It was limit the damage, keep the ball on the ground. Not too many runs can score when the ball's on the ground, even if it gets through the infield. I was just [in] attack mode and going right at them with my stuff and saying, 'Here it is. Hit it.'"

Right-hander Geoff Hartlieb, who has taken big steps forward this season, continued to cement his role as a rally-killing relief fireman in the sixth. Lefty Sam Howard exited with the bases loaded and two outs, and Hartlieb retired Cameron Maybin to strand all three runners. Hartlieb, who went on to work a scoreless seventh, has stranded 16 of the 18 runners he’s inherited this season.

“I think we're seeing the maturation of a really good reliever,” Shelton said. “We talk a lot about opportunities. He’s taken an opportunity, and he's running with it. That’s exciting to see. … He's done a nice job in big spots. He came in with the bases loaded and was able to execute.”