'Every outfielder's dream': For Pirates, robbing homers an art form harder than it looks on TV

As Josh Palacios tracked the fly ball toward the left field corner, the thought crossed his mind that its high trajectory combined with a short fence at PNC Park could allow for a highlight-reel moment.

“I’m not going to lie,” Palacios said. “In the back of my mind, I was like, ‘Ooh, I can rob this one.’”

The Pittsburgh Pirates left fielder leapt against the corner wall, only to realize that his momentum carried him too far. So he reached back with his glove to snare the 334-foot shot by San Diego’s Juan Soto, stealing a potential home run in the seventh inning of Tuesday’s 9-4 win.

“Robbing a homer is every outfielder’s dream,” Palacios said, “so that was definitely a baseball bucket list item I could check off there.”

JOSH PALACIOS TAKES ONE AWAY FROM JUAN SOTO ????

(via @MLB)pic.twitter.com/WOrwGUOPZv

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) June 28, 2023

oh wow.#ROYnolds pic.twitter.com/iWOfQeCY6b

— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) August 5, 2019

Corey Dickerson goes up HIGH to rob Kyle Schwarber pic.twitter.com/P3YwaXJ2Gh

— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) May 28, 2018

Watching outfielders make catches over the 6-foot fence in left is nothing new for the Pirates. Corey Dickerson robbed Kyle Schwarber in nearly the same spot in May 2018, on his way to winning a Gold Glove. Bryan Reynolds reached over the wall in the left-field corner to steal a homer from Mike Moustakas in August 2019.

“The cool thing about ours is that the fence is so low that they can get up and you can actually see the glove or the body above the fence,” said Pirates outfield coach Tarrik Brock, “which makes the catch that much more dramatic.”

Pirates manager Derek Shelton credited Brock, also the team’s first base coach, for spending a lot of time working with players on “wall balls,” teaching them how to track and catch fly balls against the fence at PNC Park and other major league stadiums.

“Tarrik does a really good job, as well as any outfield coach I’ve been around, of playing to the environment,” Shelton said. “Because he knows that’s part of our environment and that most of our guys are going to play left, they spend time robbing homers. You think like, ‘OK, that’s a game you played when you were 12 and you were in the outfield.’ But it’s a real thing because you have to learn how to play the wall, have to learn how to get up the wall. Because that’s something that’s functional at our ballpark, we work on it. That’s a credit that we’ve seen it happen because of that.”

‘Harder than it looks on TV’

With the dimensions at PNC Park — 325 feet down the left field line, with an angled corner wall and a 6-foot fence — Brock preaches the importance of outfielders getting back as quick as possible, especially when right-handed pull hitters come to the plate.

“There’s a lot of different things,” Palacios said. “At first, balls by the wall are probably the hardest thing because you’re usually running full speed towards an object that you’re never going to beat. If you hit that wall hard, you’re done. That’s a stagnant object there.

“On top of that, there are also tricky ways that the ball moves in this park. What I’m learning now is in that left field corner, the ball always kind of crosses back. Regardless of what it looks like, it crosses back. The last thing is, cognitively, it’s the hardest thing because you’re reading the ball, you’ve got to take a second to look at the wall, find the wall and get a gauge of where you’re at and then look back up, pick the ball up and the spin back up. So it’s a little harder than it looks on TV but it’s a lot of fun, definitely a lot of fun.”

When Palacios joined the Pirates, he took notes on how Reynolds played high fly balls against a left field fence where the dimensions change drastically from foul pole to bullpen. The corner plays short but the rest of the left field fence continues to get deeper, with the left-center wall at 389 feet and the deepest part of the field a 410-foot nook.

“I saw how Reynolds went about it, getting to the wall clean and making sure he gets his glove high enough. You see that and it gives you motivation,” Palacios said. “Short wall. Really far back there, too, for the most part, so it’s definitely something that you could just get your glove over. Or you could try to Mike Trout it and get a huge leap and get over that wall and go get it.”

Brock has the outfielders practice going at different angles, both home and on the road. At other ballparks, the Pirates practice catching balls close to the wall. That’s especially true at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, where Brock doesn’t want players getting tangled in the ivy or crashing into the brick wall behind it.

Brock knows the Pirates will have chances on their next road trip. At Dodger Stadium, the fences are only 4 ½ feet from foul pole to bullpen and 8 feet at the highest point. At Arizona’s Chase Field, the fences are 6-foot-6 in left — where Austin Meadows had a David Peralta home run bounce out of his glove in June 2018 — and 7-6 in right.

“The art form of that is getting to the wall, being able to get up and protect yourself from a contact injury,” Brock said. “Being able to make a catch like that while twisting back could pose a lot of threats.”

What concerns Brock is the chance of injury because of wall collisions, which was heightened when New York Yankees superstar Aaron Judge injured his big toe making a catch while crashing into and breaking the screened fence in right field at Dodger Stadium. Almost immediately, the Los Angeles Dodgers owner announced plans to reinforce the fence and add a strip of padding to the concrete portion at the bottom of the wall to prevent future injuries.

TYLER NAQUIN ROBBED OF A HOMER BY BRYAN REYNOLDS pic.twitter.com/h7WYzt6SyG

— MLB Update (@MLBNewsRumor) August 6, 2021

That’s one reason why Brock prefers Pirates outfielders don’t attempt to climb the 10-foot wall in center field at PNC Park. He instructs players to save such heroics for places like Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park, where Reynolds robbed Tyler Naquin of a homer in August 2021.

“It’s tough,” Brock said. “For a guy to do that, they would have to use the cushion to be able to get themselves up and get over. That’s something we don’t recommend because that spike could get caught. Or, as you’re going up, there could be a slip and you could have ankle or Achilles issues — and we don’t want that.”

Brock doesn’t have to worry about his outfielders trying to rob homers in right field at PNC Park, where playing in the shadow of the 21-foot Clemente Wall makes it impossible.

“I told ‘Cutch’ earlier in the year when he was playing the outfield that if he ever got one in right,” Shelton said of Andrew McCutchen, “it would be one of the greatest catches I’ve ever seen.”

‘It’s fun to make somebody else feel your pain’

Reynolds counts three home run robberies on his resume, though one was a “super high” fly ball at a 39-degree launch angle that allowed him plenty of time to get to the wall and simply reach back to catch a 410-footer by Adolis Garcia of the Texas Rangers on May 23 at PNC Park.

That helps explain the All-Star outfielder’s wry response to the art of stealing home runs.

“It takes a lot of talent, a lot of skill,” Reynolds said, with a sly smile. “It’s pretty easy at our place because our wall is short. It can be tough if you’re running back full steam, but if you have time to get back there and scope it out, it’s not that hard.”

Then again, like Palacios said, it’s not as easy as it might appear on the screen. Reynolds made leaping attempts but couldn’t come down with the ball on two homers to left in a four-day span last month.

Reynolds was a step behind Oakland’s Brent Rooker’s 388-foot solo shot in the eighth inning June 6, “so it beat me to the spot.” Reynolds got blocked by the wall when New York Mets star Francisco Lindor hit a 382-foot solo homer in the third inning June 9, missing it “by maybe a foot.”

“It sucks,” Reynolds said, “because you want to make those plays for your pitchers.”

It wasn't quite a home run robbery, but Bryan Reynolds takes away extra-bases from Casey Schmitt with a leaping catch at the wall. pic.twitter.com/tt36uzaykw

— Justice delos Santos (@justdelossantos) May 31, 2023

Reynolds is most proud of the catch he made this season, going to his left against the wall on Casey Schmitt at San Francisco’s Oracle Park that turned what would have been at minimum an extra-base hit and at most a three-run homer into a sacrifice fly in the sixth inning of a 9-4 win over the Giants on May 31.

“That was one of my better catches. I don’t know if that one was getting out but it was at least hitting the top,” Reynolds said. “It’s a good feeling because I’ve been on the other side, and that’s not a good feeling (when) hitting. So it’s fun to make somebody else feel your pain.”