NEW YORK – Ten-and-a-half months after Jason Heyward had his jaw broken by a 90-mph fastball thrown by Mets left-hander Jon Niese, the Braves right fielder saw a 94-mph fastball from another Mets lefty buzz past his head in the eighth inning Monday.
Heyward ducked and Josh Edgin’s pitch pitch sailed over his hands and to the backstop. Three pitches later, Heyward singled up the middle, snapping an 0-for-37 streak against left-handers.
“I didn’t think about it like that until I got to first,” Heyward said of having another lefty’s fastball coming close to his head at the same ballpark where he got beaned. “(Mets rookie first baseman Eric) Campbell, I guess he wasn’t here last year when it happened. He was like, ‘That’s a nice piece (of hitting), especially after the ball thrown over your hands.’” I said I appreciate it, man. Then he said, ‘Why you do you wear that? You been hit there before?’”
Campbell was referring to the special guard attached to the right ear flap of Heyward’s batting helmet, which protects the right side of his face. He had metal plates surgically attached to two fractures in his jaw last season and spent a month on the disabled list. Heyward said until Campbell asked about that guard, he hadn’t even thought about being in the same ballpark where the beaning occurred.
“I said, ‘Yeah, it was actually here last year, in August,’” Heyward said, smiling Tuesday as he recounted the conversation with Campbell. “That was kind of funny that he asked me about that. But no, I didn’t really think about it while it was going on. Just get back in there, put up a good AB (at-bat). I felt like my last four out of five ABs I hit a ball hard, just wrong spot.”
Heyward said he had recently thought about removing the guard from his batting helmet, but that after Monday’s incident he would hold off making that decision for the time being.
Before Monday, his drought against lefties had sunk his average to a majors-worst .128 against them. He entered Tuesday night’s game against the Mets with a .241 overall average including .277 in 253 at-bats against right-handers and .138 in 87 at-bats against lefties.
“I know, man, I feel like it’s been a grind,” he said. “I guess almost wanting to be perfect, to get the perfect pitch, not chase pitches off the plate. I feel like there was some ABs I was just missing pitches. Sometimes not necessarily getting ready to hit; not being passive, but just kind of being cautious, not chasing a slider out of the zone or something like that.
“I know some of my ABs over the last 2 ½ weeks I’ve been trying to move runners as well,” he said. “So even with lefties on the mound I’ve been trying to do that versus let’s go up there and try to get a hit. But I know it’s been some time since I had a ball go through against a lefty.”
Heyward has never had such a disparity in his performance against right-hander and lefties in previous seasons, but has said since returning from the Niese beaning that facing lefties hasn’t presented any mental obstacles for him. He insists he hasn’t thought about it in the batter’s box.
