Henry Davis Home Run Wins a 1-0 Game
Pittsburgh’s catcher is hitting .169 this season. On Sunday he hit the only run of a 1-0 game, erased the tying run at the plate, and caught a five-hit shutout.
Angels starter Walbert Ureña threw a sinker at 98.1 miles an hour on the second pitch of the at-bat. Henry Davis hit it 364 feet to left field. It was his only hit of the day.
That home run came in the third inning on Sunday afternoon at PNC Park. Nobody scored again, in either dugout, for the rest of the day. Pittsburgh 1, Los Angeles Angels 0.
Davis went first overall for a bat that has not shown up this year
The Pirates took Henry Davis with the No. 1 pick of the 2021 draft, the first player in Louisville’s baseball program ever taken first overall. His bat put him there.
As a junior he hit .370 with 15 home runs and 48 RBI, and he led the ACC with a .482 on-base percentage. He was a unanimous All-American that spring. He was also a finalist for the Buster Posey Award, which goes to the best catcher in college baseball.
But the bat has been the hard part in the majors. Davis is hitting .169 this season with nine home runs.
So he built the other half of the job into something almost nobody in baseball can match. Runners have tried to steal on him 36 times in 2026. Davis has thrown out 17 of them.
| Caught stealing, 2026 | Attempts | Runners thrown out | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Henry Davis | 36 | 17 | 47.2% |
| All MLB catchers | 3,780 | 877 | 23.2% |
That is the best rate of any major-league catcher with at least 20 attempts against him. It is more than double what the average catcher does.
The tying run tried to score in the fifth, and Davis was waiting
Ureña gave up three hits in eight innings and never handed the Pirates a second opening. He was implacable. So the Angels only needed one break of their own.
They nearly got it. Mike Trout doubled to center field in the top of the fifth with two outs. Zach Neto was on first base, and he ran for home. That is three bases, about 270 feet, on one hit.
Oneil Cruz fielded the ball in center field and threw to Brandon Lowe, the Pirates’ second baseman. Lowe turned and fired home.
Cruz and Lowe made that out possible. Still, a relay only counts if the catcher holds on to the ball with a runner coming in at full speed. Davis held on, and he tagged Neto before Neto reached the plate.
That was the Angels’ best chance of the game, and it died in Davis’s mitt.
Skenes got his first win since July, and Davis caught all nine innings
Paul Skenes went 5.1 innings and allowed four hits and no runs. He had not won a game since July 19. In between, the 2025 National League Cy Young winner made seven starts without one.
He also faced the Angels for the first time in his career. Skenes grew up in Orange County rooting for them.
Gregory Soto, Carmen Mlodzinski, Camilo Doval and Mason Montgomery finished the game. Between the five of them, the Angels got five hits all afternoon. Davis caught every inning of it: five pitchers, five different kinds of stuff, one plan at a time.
Ureña lost anyway.
A batting average is one line in a catcher’s job description. The throw to second is another. The tag at the plate is another. The plan your pitcher trusts is another.
Three of those four have nothing at all to do with getting a hit, and Davis put all three on the board Sunday. So all three are waiting for you at practice this week.
Try this at your next practice
- The relay finish. Have a teammate throw from the outfield grass to a cutoff player, who turns and throws home. You work only the finish: catch the ball first, then apply the tag. Ten reps, and count how many you catch cleanly before anyone grades the tag.
- Timed throw-downs. Five throws to second base with a stopwatch running from the pop of the mitt to the catch at the bag. Write the numbers down every week. Davis throws out runners at more than twice the league rate, and that clock is the part of the throw you can actually practice.
- The between-innings note. After every inning you catch, write one sentence about your pitcher — what is working, and what the hitters are chasing. That sentence is the start of a game plan, and a game plan never depends on your batting average.
Sources: Paul Skenes ends seven-start winless drought, Henry Davis homers in Pirates’ 1-0 victory over Angels (AP via WKBN) · Paul Skenes halts winless stretch as Pirates blank Angels (AP via KNBR) · MLB Stats API game feed and boxscore · Davis taken with No. 1 overall pick in MLB Draft (Louisville Athletics) · Pirates 2026 season previews: Catchers (Bucs Dugout).