Brandon Lowe hit a 342-foot drive at PNC Park on Monday, and this time it was only a single. The ball clanged off the Clemente Wall in right field, a finish that looked nothing like the one he got last Thursday in St. Louis.
That is why the same number is drawing attention now. Lowe had already sent a 342-foot ball deep enough at Busch Stadium to bounce off the top of the wall near the left-field foul pole, and that drive was later ruled a home run. Two balls. Two parks. The same measured distance. Different outcomes.
Lowe said he has learned not to overthink what happens after the ball leaves his bat. “I love baseball,” he said, after the Monday play that turned into a single at PNC Park. The line fits the split-second nature of what he is dealing with: a ball that would have been gone elsewhere did not carry the same result against Pittsburgh’s right-field wall.
The Clemente Wall is 21 feet high, a tribute to Roberto Clemente's No. 21, and it has a way of changing the shape of a game for left-handed hitters. That is part of why the Pirates acquired Lowe in the first place. They believed his left-handed power would play well here, and Monday showed both sides of that bet. The contact was there. The outcome was not.
That is the part worth watching next. Lowe’s power is not in question, but PNC Park makes him earn every extra foot, and the wall in right field can turn hard contact into something far less damaging in a hurry. If he keeps hitting the ball in that same range, the difference between a home run, a double or a single may keep coming down to one wall and one park.
