Swinging Gates: Third baseman was late addition to Hogs' loaded lineup

Arkansas third baseman Jared Gates connects for a home run against Grand Canyon Wednesday, April 5, 2017, during the third inning at Baum Stadium.

— Ugly is the word Jax Biggers used to describe Jared Gates. But he was talking about the palm of Gates’ right hand, not his batting swing.

The Gates swing is a thing of beauty - flat and short. It produces line drives to all fields.

But it wasn’t any good the first month of the season after the hamate bone (thumb area) of his right hand snapped in batting practice the week of the season opener in late February. The Wichita, Kan., Northwest product sat out until March 22, the game ahead of the second SEC series.

The surgery left a nasty scar and was still producing bruising well into his first dozen games back in the lineup as the everyday third baseman.

“Ugly,” said Biggers, talking about the hand. “I told him that.”

The swing is a different matter.

“It’s as good a swing as you’ll see,” Biggers said. “I think he’s just a natural hitter, like Alex Bregman (the second overall pick the 2015 MLB Draft) was at LSU. It’s flat and he hits it everywhere. When he did get back from the injury, all he did was get three hits in his first two SEC Friday night games. You don’t do that as a fluke, not in the SEC against these arms.”

Told about the praise from his running buddy, Gates just smiled.

“Saying someone has a flat swing, that’s as nice a compliment as you could get,” he said. “I’ve always been able to hit.”

The hand is another matter.

“It still doesn’t look too good,” Gates admitted. “But it feels alright.”

Doctors and trainers predicted that Gates would be out four to six weeks. Gates planned to beat that.

“After the surgery, I thought, ‘OK, four weeks or sooner,’ but I played my first game at five weeks and it really wasn’t right until the next week,” he said. “So six weeks was right. I wasn’t 100 percent for six.”

The injury happened in a scrimmage the week of the opener.

“I fouled a pitch off and it was excruciating pain,” he said. “I finished that at-bat and went to the field. I just couldn’t throw. I had to get the attention of the trainer. I got an MRI the same day.”

Gates doesn’t wear batting gloves, a throwback to another era. He did agree to a padded glove the week before his comeback.

“I used them in one or two games, I think,” he said. “I hated them. I threw them away.”

Biggers laughs about that.

“You don’t see many without batting gloves anymore,” Biggers said. “They give you any style you want, free. Why not use them? But Jared doesn’t. I guess you will see a guy without gloves about once out of every four teams. It’s unusual.”

Gates is a lefty hitter, but throws with his right hand. He was projected to play first base before the hand injury. He might have hit in the top of the order, perhaps second, but all of that changed by the time he finished rehab. Chad Spanberger was locked in at first base, and in the second spot in the batting order.

Now, he’s playing third base, something Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn sees as a good fit.

“He played second in junior college,” Van Horn said. “If he gets to it, he fields it, but his range isn’t as good as some others. He just doesn’t have the foot speed.”

Van Horn didn’t worry about a position when he committed Gates in the fall of 2015 ahead of his sophomore season at Iowa Western Community College.

“We just wanted a JUCO hitter, an older guy,” Van Horn said. “We knew he could hit. We wanted his bat.”

So Gates was already signed with the Hogs when Iowa Western went to the JUCO World Series. Ironically, it was there that assistant coach Tony Vitello discovered a more pressing need, a shortstop. Biggers was playing with Cisco, Texas.

“I didn’t know him at that point,” Gates said of Biggers. “My coach told me that Arkansas was there to look at Jax. Then, we both were invited to play in the summer with the (JUCO) Team USA. We were roommates. That was when Jax made his visit. I told him he was going to like it.”

Gates fell in love on his visit to Baum Stadium.

“It’s the best stadium in America,” he said. “There is not another one like it as far as colleges. I don’t take it for granted. I realize every day when I come here to practice what we’ve got. I think everyone else does, too.”

It wasn’t what he expected for his college experience. He thought he was going to stay home to play at Wichita State.

“I grew up a Shocker fan,” he said. “They recruited me all the way up until the end. I kept thinking they would pull the trigger, but they didn’t and no one else did. So I went to junior college. I don’t regret anything because look where I’m at now. It couldn’t have worked out any better.”

Gates hit .612 as a high school junior. He’s hit over .400 in five straight seasons, including both years in junior college.

“The problem was that I wasn’t really going to be a college shortstop,” he said. “I guess no one could figure out where I was going to play. I really didn’t think I would play second at this level, either. But I’m just fine where it ended up, third.”

Van Horn said, “He’s really a better defender than we thought. He doesn’t have range, but what he gets to, he’s going to field.”

Gates was terrific at the plate in the fall. He was off to a good start in January before the injury. There was a rough period in his first few games back, but things took off to start the Alabama series, his second week to play.

“You could see the confidence return at Alabama,” Van Horn said. “He had a great batting practice on Thursday night at their park and he exploded for three hits on Friday night. And, he hit one off the top of the fence, opposite field against the wind on yesterday.”

Van Horn said there is power in his bat, both ways.

“I’d say he has natural pull power, but he doesn’t just do that,” Van Horn said. “He’ll go up the middle and the other way. He’s got sneaky power.”

Gates has the respect and confidence from his teammates.

“Our players really like him,” Van Horn said. “He’s really quiet. You could see our dugout just erupt Friday night when he got that first hit. I know he looked like a different player Thursday in batting practice. He just said, ‘Coach, I’m 100 percent.’ And he is now.

“Like I said, everyone likes him. He isn’t going to say much, but if he does talk, everyone is going to listen because he’s a winner.”

Gates said he’s probably more talkative than most think.

“I’m new,” he said. “It’s better to just play. I’ll talk. I probably talk more to Jax. We got to spend a lot of time together in the summer before getting here. That was good.

“We were doing everything for the first time together, finding our way around. If we ended up in the wrong place, at least we did it together.”

Gates was worried the Hogs wouldn’t want him after Vitello saw him play in Iowa.

“The game he came to, I didn’t hit and I figured that was the end of that,” he said. “I thought he might not call me back. But he did. He said, ‘I already knew you could hit.’

“I really like Coach Vitello. He talked to me like I was one of his brothers. I think I could talk to him about anything.”

It’s clear that Gates does talk some. He had some words for Biggers a few weeks ago on a road trip.

“Yes, sir, I was telling him that he was wrong about his football ability,” Gates said. “He was telling me that he’d be able to start for our football team at wide receiver. I shot him down. He even pulled up his video (off of Hudl) to show some plays.

“Now, he was pretty good. But this is the SEC. Do you think he could get open against the teams we play in the SEC? I don’t think so.”

OK, there’s a little trash talk from the man with the ugly hand. Gates should give Biggers a little credit. After all, he did compare him to Alex Bregman.