Don Kelly accidentally highlighted Henry Davis' biggest problem with attempted compliment

Henry Davis hit his 10th home run of the season Thursday, and if you've watched Davis hit for any length of time, you can probably picture it without even seeing the highlight.

He ripped another screaming line drive down the left-field line, barely keeping it fair. Because of course he did. It’s just what he does. And that’s sort of the problem.

Davis now joins six other Pittsburgh Pirates with double-digit home runs this season, offering another tantalizing glimpse of the hitter Pittsburgh thought it was getting when it selected him No. 1 overall in 2021. The raw strength has never been in question. Neither has his ability to absolutely punish a baseball when he gets one he can yank.

As for everything else? Four years into his major-league career, we're still waiting.

Davis is hitting .164/.264/.295 this season, numbers every bit as ugly as they look. Worse, they're hardly an outlier. His career line across 943 plate appearances sits at .176/.263/.295. At a certain point, that's not a slump. Davis simply is who he is as a major league hitter.

Which made Don Kelly's attempted compliment of Davis rather interesting.

"Henry works his tail off every single day," Kelly said after Thursday's win over the Milwaukee Brewers. "He's so strong he doesn't need to muscle up to generate power."

OK. Then why does it so often look like Davis is trying to pull everything in sight?

Kelly was clearly trying to praise Davis' work ethic and natural strength, both of which are worth acknowledging. But he also accidentally landed on the exact reason Davis remains one of the most confounding players of this entire Pirates era.

Henry Davis results make Don Kelly’s latest praise difficult to reconcile

If Davis really is strong enough that he doesn't need to sell out for power — and he unquestionably is — then why has that strength never translated into a more complete offensive approach? Why is a player with that kind of physical ability still struggling to hit even .200? Why do so many of his best swings seem to come when he's turning on a pitch and ripping it toward the left-field corner?

The home runs are nice. Ten of them from a catcher with Davis' defensive ability certainly have value. In fact, the Pirates have surprisingly received plenty of production from the position overall. They've just gotten much of that offense from catchers other than Davis, and that's what makes his season — and really his career — so frustrating.

Davis has developed into a legitimately impressive defensive catcher, something that once looked like it might prevent him from sticking behind the plate at all. His arm, receiving and overall comfort at the position have given him a real major-league skill. But the bat was supposed to be the carrying tool.

Instead, every once in a while, Davis launches another missile down the left-field line and reminds everyone why he was once the first player selected in the draft. Then you look back at the .164 batting average, and reality sets in.

If Kelly is right that Davis doesn't need to muscle up to generate power, maybe that's exactly what makes the offensive results so difficult to understand. Because with that much natural strength, Davis shouldn't have to hit like every pitch needs to land in the left-field seats.

And yet, four years later, it’s just what he does.

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