Keppinger Born to Hit
By C. Trent Rosecrans
Cincinnati Post
8/7/2007
When David Perno was recruiting Brandon Phillips to play baseball at the University of Georgia, Perno told the hotshot shortstop that he’d play every day but at second base, not short.
The reason was the incumbent.
“I told him, ‘You’re not going to beat this kid out,’” Perno said.
That kid was Jeff Keppinger. If there’s one thing Perno, then an assistant coach at Georgia, knew, it was that his team was going as far as Keppinger could take them.
Phillips, now the Reds second baseman, didn’t remember that conversation and said, “I would have beat (Keppinger) out.” But it’s just that kind of confidence that made those two players the very type of player Perno loved and that Reds interim manager Pete Mackanin likes, as well.
“He’s a guy with a high baseball IQ. The more guys you have like that, the better your team is,” Mackanin said of Keppinger. “The more guys who are winners, who like to win, who play to win and knows how to win — there’s a good example of a guy who knows how to win.”
Phillips’ spectacular play this season is hardly a surprise. He bypassed college, where he was going to play baseball and football for the Bulldogs, and was a second-round pick by the Montreal Expos and was at one time considered the future shortstop of the Cleveland Indians before Cincinnati general manager Wayne Krivsky traded for him early last season. Phillips responded to Krivsky’s chance by having a breakout season in 2006 and has continued in 2007, becoming the first Reds second baseman to hit 20 home runs and steal 20 bases since Joe Morgan in 1977.
Keppinger’s road has been even longer. A year older than Phillips, Keppinger made his first pre-All-Star break appearance as a major leaguer this season when the Reds called him up for two brief stints in May. He had appeared in 33 games for the Mets in 2004 and 22 games for the Royals last season, but in 21 appearances for the Reds this season, he’s showing his abilities, hitting .333 with two home runs and 15 RBIs. He’s quickly become a favorite of Mackanin, who said he’s trying to find a place to put him in the lineup nearly every day.
“I would be negligent if I didn’t,” Mackanin said before Sunday’s rainout in Pittsburgh, where he had penciled in Keppinger to make his first start in left field. So far this season, Keppinger has started nine games at shortstop, four at third base and two at second base.
Instead of his versatility being a positive, it’s been one of the things that hampered Keppinger’s march to the majors. The tag given to him in the minors was that he didn’t have a position. The Pirates drafted Keppinger, an All-American shortstop at Georgia, in the fourth round of the 2001 first-year player draft. Although he’d played a solid, if unspectacular shortstop in college, the Pirates put him at second base.
“Who decided a guy can’t do certain things? I know when I first came to the Pirates, they decided I couldn’t play shortstop, and I think I’ve done OK,” Keppinger said. “You get labels in this game and sometimes it sticks.”
Since then, Keppinger has been traded three times — to the Mets in the Kris Benson trade in 2004, to the Royals for Ruben Gotay last season and to the Reds in January.
Throughout that time, he has played all over the infield in the minor leagues and done what he does best — hit. Since hitting .276 for Class A Hickory in 2002, Keppinger has never hit lower than .300 in the minors and hit .278 in 55 major league games.
“He’s old-school. Hitters are born, not made,” Perno said. “He was born to hit, he can do it at every level, he’s done it at every level.”
The Reds acquired Keppinger for minor league right-hander Russ Haltiwanger in January, and Keppinger was leading the Grapefruit League in hitting with a .750 average when he was hit by a pitch and broke his hand in spring training.
In 57 games with Class AAA Louisville, Keppinger led the International League in batting with a .368 average when the Reds called him up last month. If he continues what he’s doing now, Keppinger may have finally made the big leagues for good.
“I think of the hurdles he had to climb the whole way,” Perno said. “Everyone questioned if he could make it academically and socially in college. He left his last semester here with a 3.3 GPA and he was the guy who led us the whole way to the College World Series. There were so many questions about him the whole way, but I’m so proud of him. He’s the kind of kid you get into coaching for.”
When asked it took longer than he ever thought to make his mark in the big leagues, Keppinger said he had expected to be here sooner.
“Um, I’d like to say no, but it seems like it’s been a long road. I didn’t struggle too many years, I don’t even know why it took this long,” he said. “That’s just the way it goes. Opportunities weren’t right with the teams I was with and hopefully the right one now.”
As much as anything, Keppinger has made his opportunity with the Reds. He’s versatile enough to play shortstop when regular shortstop Alex Gonzalez was on the restricted list dealing with family issues and his sweet fielding replacement from the minor league, Pedro Lopez, was injured. Keppinger has made one error at short, his only error of the season. But he’s more than made up for it with his bat, coming through several times in the last two weeks with runners on base. So far, he’s batting .333 with runners in scoring position — and with two outs, he’s even better, hitting .417 with two outs and runners in scoring position. With bases loaded, Keppinger is batting .800 (4-for-5).
As a young player, Keppinger idolized his older brother, Billy. His mother, father and grandfather all taught the Keppinger brothers the game, with Jeff tagging along with the older Billy, now pitching in the independent Northern League.
Jeff Keppinger remembers his grandfather teaching everyone in his first post-T-ball league how to bunt to take advantage of the other kids’ poor fielding and throwing.
“We’d just run around the bases. We’d crush kids — from then on, it was learning to do anything it is to win,” Keppinger said. “Being that little and knowing you’re bunting because they can’t field, you’re doing what you have to to win. You do whatever you need to do — if you’ve got to bunt, you bunt. If you have to hit-and-run, you hit-and-run. If you need a home run, you try to hit a home run.”
And from T-ball, to Little League, to high school at suburban Atlanta powerhouse Parkview High School and onto Georgia, Keppinger’s teams always won.
In the 2001 NCAA Regional in Athens, Ga., Keppinger was named the Most Outstanding Player — batting .652 with four home runs. But it wasn’t just the numbers; it was how he did it, Perno said.
“In the loser’s bracket game against Georgia Southern he hit for the cycle — but the last hit was a leadoff triple in the 10th inning and we hit a sacrifice fly to win the game,” Perno remembered. “Then we have to play Coastal Carolina two games. In the second game, he hits three home runs — including a two-run home run with two outs in the ninth inning when we were down one.”
Perno was so sure that Keppinger would come through in that situation that he told the runner on first to stay close to the bag and whatever he did, not go to second, even on a passed ball, because he didn’t want give the other team an excuse to walk Keppinger.
Instead, Coastal Carolina’s ace hung a 2-1 slider and Keppinger put the ball in the pines beyond the left-field wall at Georgia’s Foley Field and he was carried off the field on the shoulders of his teammates.
The Bulldogs advanced to the College World Series and had to face Southern California ace Mark Prior in the first round.
Prior, who would be in a Cubs uniform less than a year later, had intimidated many of the Bulldogs before they stepped into the batter’s box — but not all of them.
In the first inning, Prior jammed Keppinger and got him to ground out.
“That’s when I really saw his mentality. He wasn’t going to get the best of Jeff,” Perno said.
Keppinger homered and tripled later against Prior in the Bulldogs’ loss.
“The thing about Jeff is he’s a tremendous hitter, not a ton of power at that level, not a ton of speed — average across the board except squaring the baseball up,” Perno said. “I can see why people don’t give him a chance. If he’s not out there every day, you don’t realize what he can do for you.”
With Mackanin, Keppinger has gotten that chance and he’s thrived.
Although Keppinger will be the first to admit that much of his power in college was greatly aided by an aluminum bat, he’s still shown the ability to do whatever’s asked for him in any situation — just like his grandfather taught him.
On Saturday, Keppinger was put in the game in a double switch in the eighth inning. With the Reds’ down one, Keppinger homered in his first at-bat to send the game to extra innings. The Reds went on to win in the 10th inning.
Keppinger doubled with the bases loaded on Friday to start the Reds’ four-run first inning in a victory over the Pirates.
“Anybody can see he doesn’t get himself out. That’s the main thing. He makes the pitcher get him out,” Mackanin said. “He doesn’t swing at bad pitches. He’s bunted on his own early in the game. Why? Because he feels the best thing may be a productive out. I’ve talked to him. He doesn’t feel comfortable against a certain pitcher, he’ll bunt it.”
In the Reds’ 5-4 victory over the Cubs on July 27, Keppinger laid down a sacrifice bunt in the third inning to move Ryan Freel over to second and set up the Reds’ first run of the game.
It’s just like his grandfather — Roger Dumas, a Covington, Ky., native and Reds fan — taught him as a kid, do whatever you need to do to help your team.
“Winning is something I’ve always known. I’ve just never taken well to losing,” Keppinger said. “Everywhere I’ve been, we’ve won. In high school we won, in college we won our conference, went to the World Series. Pro ball, my first year with the Pirates we won, second year we were in the championship, third year when I was traded we were in first place.”
Said Perno: “He’s a winner, he loves the moment. He wants to be up in that situation, it doesn’t matter if you got him he last time up. He’s got a tremendous amount of confidence and the right mentality. He just doesn’t have a lot of respect for pitchers. It doesn’t matter what he’s done in the game, he thinks he’s better than that guy on the mound.”