Sullivan | Ex-Bat Negron savors 1st big-league home run

CINCINNATI – Kristopher Negron rounded the bases as if he were running the anchor leg of a relay race.

He did not lope. He did not linger. He did not pause to admire the majesty of his first major-league home run, or stop to savor the culmination of so many years of striving. The Cincinnati Reds’ rookie said he would have been willing to “wait a lifetime” for the sensation he experienced Sunday, but he looked more like a man running for his life.

“I knew I hit it out, but I was so amped up, I was just going around the bases as quick as I could to get back to the dugout,” Negron said after the Reds’ 6-3 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates. “I can’t remember the last one I jogged (on) a home run. I sprint every single one of them.”

More than two years since his only previous big-league hit, Kristopher Negron is a career grinder who remains grateful for sporadic opportunities. He has played in 395 games for the Louisville Bats, and may well return to the Reds’ Triple-A affiliate once Brandon Phillips recovers from thumb surgery, but he has distinguished himself by remaining buoyant in the face of roadblocks.

At 28 years old, Negron had never started a big-league ballgame before Sunday afternoon. His opportunity arose, to a great extent, from attitude.

“There’s a lot of people that are either angry or disappointed playing Triple-A baseball,” Reds manager Bryan Price said Sunday. “They’re frustrated that they’re not here, frustrated that they’re not getting the opportunity. Kris, very much to his credit, he is here in large part because he’s been able to stay away from that attitude of feeling like he’s being neglected or overlooked.”

It helps that he is adaptable — nicknamed “Spiderman,” Negron has played six different positions this season for the Bats — and also that he is attentive. Negron’s three-run homer staked the Reds to a 3-0 lead in Sunday’s second inning Sunday, but Price’s confidence in his new callup was revealed in the bottom of the fifth inning — and on a play that backfired.

With Devin Mesoraco at third base and one out, Price called for a suicide squeeze bunt, trusting Negron to put his bat on the ball with pitcher Johnny Cueto due up next. Though the Pirates thwarted Price’s strategy, pitcher Francisco Liriano throwing a pitch so far outside that Negron was unable to make contact, the high-risk play revealed the manager’s faith in a rookie understanding his role and Reds’ code and that he could execute in a tight spot.

“He had no chance because the ball was off the plate,” Price said. “But he was a player I trusted knew the signs. If he got a ball around the plate, he would get the ball down in fair territory.”

With two All-Star infielders on the disabled list — Phillips and first baseman Joey Votto — Price has increasingly forced to play for single runs rather than big innings, and the quality and depth of his pitching has lately made this an effective business model. Despite their injuries, the Reds completed an 8-3 homestand Sunday, and enter the All-Star break just 1½ games behind Milwaukee in the National League’s Central Division.

Three weeks ago, on June 22, that gap was 8½ games. That same day, Kristopher Negron played 12 innings in center field for the Bats. Sunday, Spiderman started at second base.

“He’s playing all the defensive positions well,” Price said, “and he’s able to compete offensively. That was something that we had not seen from him at any level on a consistent basis until this spring. He had a beautiful spring, impressed us all, and when he got off to a really slow start in Louisville, he stuck with it. He didn’t get down.”

Negron’s previous trip to the major leagues consisted of four cameo appearances in the space of a week. If his tenure this time is similarly brief, he has now contributed a home run to baseball’s permanent record. Though he did not dwell on his opposite-field dinger on the field Sunday, Negron admitted that he spent part of the rain delay reading congratulatory text messages and Twitter posts on his cell phone.

“I’m just going to assimilate myself and take the opportunities,” he said. “I love playing the game, everything about it. You have your ups and downs. You’ve got to keep grinding. Whatever opportunity I’m given, I’m going to give it the best I can.”

That includes his home run trot.

Tim Sullivan can be reached at (502) 582-4650, by email at tsullivan@courier-journal.com, and on Twitter @TimSullivan714.