DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS
In the immediate, intimidating aftermath of a weekend in Phoenix that saw Andrew McCutchen’s back plunked by a malicious fastball, Neil Walker’s back flaring up anew, Pedro Alvarez backing off fans seated near first base, and our city’s baseball fan base going back to thinking it was somewhere between 2012 and Armegeddon, what these Pirates needed was some semblance, some small taste of success Tuesday night at PNC Park.
What they didn’t need, to say the very least, was the bullpen blowing up Charlie Morton’s strong seven innings into a 6-3 setback against the Marlins.
What they didn’t need was a reminder of their greatest — and growing by the day — shortcoming.
Repeat after me: This team needs relief.
And yes, that is a repeat.
While most of the fuss about Neal Huntington’s deadline dud, both locally and nationally, was about falling short on David Price or some other big-name starter, the underlying yet overwhelmingly real issue was that Huntington had done nothing to add help for Mark Melancon and Tony Watson, his two back-end bullpen guys.
Nothing at all. Not so much as a waiver-wire plucking.
This despite ample warning signs left and right. Melancon and Jared Hughes have stayed mostly sharp, but Watson has slipped even while battling toward good results, and Justin Wilson (1.71 walks and hits per inning pitched), Stolmy Pimentel (1.55), Jeamnar Gomez (1.82) and the fire marshal Ernesto Frieri (2.22) have bordered on the disastrous.
That’s more than half the pen! And to stress here anew, a reliable middle reliever wouldn’t have cost much of anything, not in prospects, certainly not in cash.
“The best move was no move,” Huntington said on deadline day, in a bizarre quote that’s already coming back to bite.
If he was referring to Price, that’s one thing. But from the broader perspective, it looks as bad as … well, what was witnessed Tuesday.
To start, Clint Hurdle, Ray Searage and staff had made Watson unavailable for this game. That was absolutely the right call. Watson had pitched in each of the final three games in Arizona, four of the past six, and his total of 53 appearances is tied for sixth in Major League Baseball.
If you think pitching Watson in this game was a good idea, I know a doctor in Birmingham who’d love to hand you his business card.
So out came the parade for the Miami eighth, and there went the Pirates’ 2-1 lead: Hughes got a groundout, then issued a walk. Casey McGehee reached on a bobble by Josh Harrison, which didn’t help. It also didn’t help that Hurdle went to Wilson rather than go righty-lefty on Garrett Jones. Wilson has been awful, and that continued when he gave up a single to load the bases, then walked the next man for another run.
Gomez took the ball from there, and he might as well have tossed it into the river.
Hughes stood tall afterward, as always.
“It’s really tough. Charlie did an outstanding job, and we didn’t step up and get it done in that eighth inning,” he told me in an otherwise silent clubhouse. “But you know, it’s some thing you’ve got learn from, come out tomorrow and do it right.”
If Huntington does his job right, there will be different faces in that equation. And, really, take your pick of Wilson, Gomez, especially Frieri, whose loose cannon precipitated the whole McCutchen debacle by errantly hitting the Diamondbacks’ Paul Goldschmidt.
All is not lost. Just look at the standings.
Even that other dire-sounding stuff didn’t seem so bad. McCutchen’s injury, originally feared to be an oblique — at least on the outside — is actually a displacement of rib cartilage, not even serious enough to have prompted the front office to put him on the DL. I spoke briefly with Cutch late last night, and he shrugged it off as if it were a baby bruise. Moreover, Walker was right back in the lineup. So was Starling Marte, back from a concussion. And even the Alvarez had a temporary reprieve when he was placed on the bereavement list, conveniently or otherwise, for the death of a grandmother-in-law. Either way, the time away from those cross-diamond throws should help.
But what will any of it matter if the GM genuinely believes that no move is better than watching that middle-relief firewagon at work?
August 5, 2014
Column: So this is what ‘no move’ looks like
by Dejan Kovacevic • Columns • Pirates
DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS
In the immediate, intimidating aftermath of a weekend in Phoenix that saw Andrew McCutchen’s back plunked by a malicious fastball, Neil Walker’s back flaring up anew, Pedro Alvarez backing off fans seated near first base, and our city’s baseball fan base going back to thinking it was somewhere between 2012 and Armegeddon, what these Pirates needed was some semblance, some small taste of success Tuesday night at PNC Park.
What they didn’t need, to say the very least, was the bullpen blowing up Charlie Morton’s strong seven innings into a 6-3 setback against the Marlins.
What they didn’t need was a reminder of their greatest — and growing by the day — shortcoming.
Repeat after me: This team needs relief.
And yes, that is a repeat.
While most of the fuss about Neal Huntington’s deadline dud, both locally and nationally, was about falling short on David Price or some other big-name starter, the underlying yet overwhelmingly real issue was that Huntington had done nothing to add help for Mark Melancon and Tony Watson, his two back-end bullpen guys.
Nothing at all. Not so much as a waiver-wire plucking.
This despite ample warning signs left and right. Melancon and Jared Hughes have stayed mostly sharp, but Watson has slipped even while battling toward good results, and Justin Wilson (1.71 walks and hits per inning pitched), Stolmy Pimentel (1.55), Jeamnar Gomez (1.82) and the fire marshal Ernesto Frieri (2.22) have bordered on the disastrous.
That’s more than half the pen! And to stress here anew, a reliable middle reliever wouldn’t have cost much of anything, not in prospects, certainly not in cash.
“The best move was no move,” Huntington said on deadline day, in a bizarre quote that’s already coming back to bite.
If he was referring to Price, that’s one thing. But from the broader perspective, it looks as bad as … well, what was witnessed Tuesday.
To start, Clint Hurdle, Ray Searage and staff had made Watson unavailable for this game. That was absolutely the right call. Watson had pitched in each of the final three games in Arizona, four of the past six, and his total of 53 appearances is tied for sixth in Major League Baseball.
If you think pitching Watson in this game was a good idea, I know a doctor in Birmingham who’d love to hand you his business card.
So out came the parade for the Miami eighth, and there went the Pirates’ 2-1 lead: Hughes got a groundout, then issued a walk. Casey McGehee reached on a bobble by Josh Harrison, which didn’t help. It also didn’t help that Hurdle went to Wilson rather than go righty-lefty on Garrett Jones. Wilson has been awful, and that continued when he gave up a single to load the bases, then walked the next man for another run.
Gomez took the ball from there, and he might as well have tossed it into the river.
Hughes stood tall afterward, as always.
“It’s really tough. Charlie did an outstanding job, and we didn’t step up and get it done in that eighth inning,” he told me in an otherwise silent clubhouse. “But you know, it’s some thing you’ve got learn from, come out tomorrow and do it right.”
If Huntington does his job right, there will be different faces in that equation. And, really, take your pick of Wilson, Gomez, especially Frieri, whose loose cannon precipitated the whole McCutchen debacle by errantly hitting the Diamondbacks’ Paul Goldschmidt.
All is not lost. Just look at the standings.
Even that other dire-sounding stuff didn’t seem so bad. McCutchen’s injury, originally feared to be an oblique — at least on the outside — is actually a displacement of rib cartilage, not even serious enough to have prompted the front office to put him on the DL. I spoke briefly with Cutch late last night, and he shrugged it off as if it were a baby bruise. Moreover, Walker was right back in the lineup. So was Starling Marte, back from a concussion. And even the Alvarez had a temporary reprieve when he was placed on the bereavement list, conveniently or otherwise, for the death of a grandmother-in-law. Either way, the time away from those cross-diamond throws should help.
But what will any of it matter if the GM genuinely believes that no move is better than watching that middle-relief firewagon at work?