Lakeland, Fla. — His brother knew better. He even said so after that fateful game last October at Minute Maid Park in Houston.
“I know what pitches he likes to hit,” Phil Maton said.
And yet, with the crowd on its feet in the eighth inning of an otherwise meaningless regular-season finale, players from both teams up on the top steps of their respective dugouts, Phil Maton fed his brother a 91-mph fastball with the count even, 2-2.
There is no pitch his little brother Nick Maton likes to hit more than heaters, and he slammed that one into right-center for a single.
“That was crazy,” said Nick, a utility player for the Phillies last year, now vying for regular playing time with the Tigers. “Once the crowd figured it out that I was coming down, it got crazy.
“It was loud. Imagine like a bottom-of-the-ninth situation, the crowd on their feet. Both dugouts were up. We were all pulling for each other. And then, I got that hit … just nuts.”
Phil Maton ended up missing the Astros’ playoff run. He punched his locker in frustration after that game and broke a bone in his hand. It wasn’t just because he gave up the knock to his little brother.
He’d been scuffling.
Nick Maton ended up, after being on the Phillies’ World Series roster, getting traded to the Tigers, along with Matt Vierling and Donny Sands.
One of the big selling points for the Tigers, besides his positional versatility, was his ability to bang fastballs. In his two seasons in the big leagues, Maton is 30-for-91 (.329) against fastballs. He hit .406 (13-for-32) with four homers off heaters last year.
You can see why that would be attractive to the Tigers. No team in baseball saw more fastballs (48%) and struggled to hit them more than the Tigers (minus-59.9 runs above average, per FanGraphs) last season.
The next step for Maton now is to get better at hitting spin and off-speed, because the word is out.
“It’s pretty obvious when you see the volume of fastballs he got when he first got to the big leagues (50%) versus toward the tail end of last year (30%),” manager AJ Hinch said. “I don’t want to draw a ton of conclusions yet, until he gets more experience. But the league adjusts pretty quickly.
“How he’s hit the fastball will be on every advance report, every scouting report and every game plan against him.”
Maton, who just turned 26 and has all of 216 big-league plate appearances, certainly understands that. He was 5-for-40 against breaking balls and off-speed pitches last season.
“You still have to stick with your strengths and be able to adjust to what you can and can’t hit,” Maton said. “I’ve done a lot of work here and during the offseason, working on being able to adjust to off-speed pitching. But you still stay on the heater and adjust.”
He knows, too, that until he shows he can do some damage against secondary pitches, the bulk of the fastballs he sees will be out of the strike zone. And his plate discipline is still a work in progress. He has a 31% chase rate in his small big-league sample.
“You are playing against the best of the best,” Maton said. “It’s hard. But the more reps you get, the more pitches you see, the easier it is to get used to it. It’s taking more reps and working with the right people and being able to figure out how to do it.
“At the end of last year, I was finding myself in deep counts and getting good pitches. Even spitting on stuff (pitches just off the plate).”
In his first at-bat of the spring, Orioles right-hander Dean Kremer teased him with a first-pitch fastball just off the plate. Maton didn’t offer. Kremer followed with a cutter and Maton blasted it over the right-field fence at Joker Marchant Stadium.
Good start.
In his second at-bat, against a nasty piece of right-handed pitching named Yennier Cano — 97-mph two-seamers and 91-mph changeups — he got the count even, 2-2, and then nearly got decapitated by a two-seamer under the chin.
He hopped right back in the box but was no match for a 3-2 changeup that shot out of the same funky arm slot but faded well outside the strike zone.
Still, it was a good test for how things might go for him this season. The more discipline he has at the plate, the more hitter-friendly counts he works, the more he sees those juicy fastballs.
“I don’t think he has to come off the fastball,” Hinch said. “It’s just a matter of strengthening other areas of his pitch recognition. He’s going to have to find a game plan and stick with it. For him to be a complete player and get into the lineup more often, him being a more well-rounded player is part of his goal.”
Notably, Maton got his first start of the spring at third base. He has played and probably will play all around the diamond this season, maybe even occasionally in the outfield. But, his best path to regular work is at third. The Tigers would love to augment the rest of their right-handed hitting infield — Javier Baez, Jonathan Schoop and Spencer Torkelson — with a left-handed bat.
But, the reality is, for as smooth and fluid as he’s looked there so far this spring, Maton has pitched in more games in the big leagues (three) than he’s played at third base (two).
“I’m pretty much comfortable and confident anywhere on the field after last year and the year previous to that,” Maton said. “A couple of years ago, I would’ve said something different. The last couple of years have been pretty hectic for me, playing all over the infield.
“I’m pretty much comfortable everywhere now. I’ll be ready wherever he wants me to play. I’ve put in a lot of work at every position.”
Big brother Phil joked with reporters in Astros camp last week that he wants another shot at his brother. The Tigers play in Houston in the second series of the season.
“Did he say that?” Nick said. “I guess he’s still wearing it a little bit (laughs). It would be fun. I’d be ready for him. I hope it does happen again. But, I’d be fine with being just one-for-one.”
Twitter: @cmccosky