PITTSBURGH — Pinch-hitting is hard. Michael Conforto is making it look easy.
“I don’t really know how he does that, to be totally honest,” second baseman Nico Hoerner said Wednesday. “It feels like he’s either homering or on the verge of it and [has] done it in really big moments for us, too.”
Conforto’s latest trick was his fourth pinch-hit homer of the year, coming in Tuesday’s win and tying Glenallen Hill’s franchise mark for the most in a single season.
All in a day’s — or, to be more precise — a moment’s work for Conforto, the veteran of 11 big league seasons who’s thriving in a limited role, bringing a do-anything attitude to a team with championship aspirations.
“This is a player who’s accomplished a lot in his career,” manager Craig Counsell said. “He’s been a starter, he’s signed big contracts, he’s a first-round pick, he was a big prospect.
“He’s confident yet very humble. That allows him to be good at the job that he’s currently in. He’s not wondering why he’s not playing, he’s just getting ready for the next time he’s going to play or going to contribute.”
Added during spring training, Conforto has bounced back from a rough season with the Dodgers — he hit .199 last year for the eventual champs — bringing an .809 OPS into Friday that stood as his best in half a decade.
His numbers as a pinch-hitter? He’s batting .333 with a 1.268 OPS.
“It’s always, ‘Can you find a player that can do this job and be successful at it?’” Counsell said Tuesday. “Michael has done a fabulous job at it, and you feel like it’s a real weapon to have somebody like that.
“All year, it feels like his biggest hits have been pinch hits. He’s got four homers, so they probably have. It’s a really nice weapon, and it’ll be really useful, hopefully, the rest of the season.”
Those results go hand in hand with the positive contributions he’s made off the field, making it perhaps not so surprising that the Dodgers, apparently, wish he never left.
“Behind the scenes, what people don’t get to see, he’s so much at the heart of the fun that this team is having,” Hoerner said. “He’s been everything we could have hoped for and more.”
Hollowell’s hurling
Right-hander Gavin Hollowell has found himself among the contingent of Cubs relievers thriving in unexpected roles amid the team’s pitching injuries.
Hollowell came into Friday with seven straight scoreless appearances, and his 0.87 ERA since June 16 is one of the 30 lowest in baseball during that span among pitchers who have thrown at least 10 innings.
“Gavin’s somebody that’s really benefitted from the opportunity,” Counsell said Friday. “Basically all of last year, the first two months [of this season], he just wasn’t getting big-moment opportunities because of who else was on the team.
“[June 24 against the Mets], that was the first significant situation that he had pitched in, just because of where we had gotten to in terms of available pitchers. And he’s really taken that and run with it.”
Pitchers on the mend
Lefty reliever Hoby Milner and righty starter Edward Cabrera will throw live batting-practice sessions with Class A South Bend this weekend as they work back from injury.
Milner, out since an appendectomy last month, is slated to head to Triple-A Iowa after for a minor league rehab assignment.
Cabrera, coming back from a strained hamstring, is also due for minor league rehab work with the I-Cubs, which will come after rejoining the big league team in St. Louis.
