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Prospect rankings can be fickle.

Take Nick Gonzales as a prime example. At the beginning of the season, he was the No. 2-ranked prospect in the Pirates’ system, fresh off a season with High-A Greensboro in which he hit .301 with a .950 OPS and 18 homers. The 2020 first-rounder seemed on track.

In one half-season, outside faith dwindled in Gonzales. He hit just .247 through May, and his strikeout rate leapt over 30%. Then, he suffered an injury to the plantar fascia in his right foot and had to sport a walking boot for weeks. He only rejoined Double-A Altoona last Friday, Aug. 12.

Those are all justifiable reasons to doubt Gonzales. Even the best prospects don’t always pan out, so when there are signs things aren’t going perfectly, of course onlookers will pay attention. It’s not like Gonzales fell completely out of Pipeline’s sights, but after their midseason re-rank of MLB prospects, Gonzales is No. 5 in the Pirates’ system and fell down to the No. 99 prospect in baseball.

Of course, Gonzales isn’t too worried about outside expectations. He just wants a string of good health. Even amid that breakout season in 2021, Gonzales suffered a broken finger that held him out. Between that and his 2022 injury, which he suffered just stepping on a base, he’s had some freak incidents that have halted his progress. Still confident in himself, Gonzales is eager to just play baseball as frequently as he can.

“I’m really excited just to play 140 games in a year,” Gonzales said Wednesday. “I want to make adjustments. I want to keep hammering, keep going, staying on the horse. I’m really excited for that. I want to play winter ball. I want to play more than 40 games at a time. That’s where I’ve been. Last year, it was 10 games, 15 games, and then, I got hurt, then [played] 40 games. I want to play 100-something games in a row and go from there.”

The next challenge, now that Gonzales is back and healthy, is keeping things small. Obviously, the big goal of 140 games can’t be accomplished this year.

It’s also true that while he will hope to improve on his seasonlong numbers in whatever’s left of Altoona’s season, there’s no use in thinking too hard about that. This was a lesson many MLB players learned in 2020. Slow starts to that 60-game season put some behind the eight ball, and when they began thinking about changing it, they ended up feeling that pressure and playing less freely.

To fight against that, Gonzales is focusing on the small adjustments. Earlier in the season, he and his coaches saw his swing plane wasn’t where they wanted it to be. The bat head wasn’t staying in the zone long enough. He was uppercutting a bit. The result was a lack of power to the pull side, Gonzales says now.

He started making some adjustments back in May, before his injury put him on the shelf. It’s still early, but there are positive signs post-injury.

“The swing is kind of weird,” Gonzales said. “To never really have a challenge with it before to now, you’ve just got to make your adjustments and go from there.”

On Wednesday, Altoona played 15 total innings. Tuesday’s game had been suspended for weather, and they picked back up in the seventh inning in a tie game.

That one eventually finished in 12 innings, and the regularly scheduled game also went to extras, finishing in 10 frames.

Gonzales went 5 for 7 in those 15 innings, with three doubles and a pair of singles. Both singles were lined to right. The first double was hit hard into the left-field corner. The second one-hopped to the wall in left-center. The final one came on the first pitch in the bottom of the 10th. In a tie game, Gonzales swung early and smoked a liner over the center fielder, bouncing over the wall for a walk-off book-rule double.

Just that day alone jumped Gonzales’ average up 19 points and his OPS up 41 points. Point being, one game can make a dent in the effort to get back to Gonzales’ former glory, as long as he doesn’t put too much pressure on any one game to do so.

“I’m just trying to take it day by day,” Gonzales said. “I’ve played right around 50 games this year, and that’s right around one-third of an actual season, so I’m not going to make a whole season’s worth in the few weeks I’m able to play. ... I want to play. I’ve missed too many games to just sit and not do anything.”

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