Uninspired as the Pirates' offseason was broadly viewed by their base, the Pittsburgh Baseball Club's 130th opener, a 4-1 flattening of the nemesis Cardinals on a cold but sweet Sunday afternoon, offered a piercing reminder that it could have brought less.
Much, much less.
Because at some point over this past winter, someone in the front office, presumably including all three of Bob Nutting, Frank Coonelly and Neal Huntington, thought it was a swell idea to ship out Mark Melancon.
You know, Melancon, the National League's Reliever of the Year in 2015, owner of a league-best 51 saves and league-best .962 save percentage.
You know, Melancon, "the best in the game," as Tony Watson would call him after this one.
You know, the almost-automatic 27th out ...
Make no mistake: The shopping of this player was real. For all the reckless speculation that generally defines the offseason, especially at Major League Baseball's Winter Meetings, it was never guesswork that Huntington was shopping Melancon at the same time he was shopping Neil Walker. Heck, the GM himself openly acknowledged as much in Nashville.
Whether it was Melancon's potential price that prompted this -- he'd wind up with $9.65 million in his final year of arbitration eligibility -- or whether it was an either/or related to the dumping of Walker to the Mets, that doesn't matter. It was still dumb beyond words to even consider moving him, never mind had they actually done so.
And this opener illustrated that in at least five sizable ways:
• Start with the rotation, the boiling point for most of the public's offseason frustration.
Francisco Liriano was a dynamo on this day with 10 strikeouts over six innings. He gave up five walks and three hits, so St. Louis hardly was without chances. But when Liriano goes into Filthy Frankie mode, that's usually immaterial. He'll go with the fastball as the foundation, the changeup for balance and the slider to bury.
"I felt good," Liriano would say. "I felt strong."
Fine, but strong is relative in starting pitching. Liriano ran up a pitch count of 94, partly because only 50 were strikes, partly because strikeouts require a ton of pitches.
And with a rotation headlined by Liriano and Gerrit Cole, plus spring standout Juan Nicasio, that's three K machines who will draw lots of swings and misses but rarely last longer than Liriano just did. The other two, lefties Jon Niese and Jeff Locke, don't strike out many, but they're also lugging serious doubts that they can get outs of any kind.
Suddenly, the deep, talented, versatile bullpen doesn't look any more like a luxury than the anchor himself.
"We have all the confidence in the world in our starters, and we've got all the confidence in each other that, if we've got to take the ball in any inning, we'll get the job done," Watson said. "We know what we've got in this pen."
More from Watson on that topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGxRHL_N28c
• Melancon's presence allows Clint Hurdle perhaps unrivaled flexibility in how to maneuver the back of his bullpen. And that, too, was on display on this day.
A few hours before first pitch, Hurdle laid out to reporters his vision for how he'll use Watson and newcomer Neftali Feliz, not so long ago a superb closer with the Rangers, and he surprised by stating for the first time that Watson, the lockdown choice for the eighth inning for two years, now might enter when he's most needed.
“We’ll look for opportunities to best leverage Watson," Hurdle said. "If it makes more sense to pitch him in the seventh, that’s an area that we’ll go to. See how it sets up from there."
Well, what do you know?
The St. Louis lineup was set to turn over in the seventh with a pinch-hitter leading off, then left-handed Matt Carpenter and left-handed Matt Adams. Now, Watson is anything but some southpaw specialist. He's equally effective against batters from both sides. But he is better against lefties than anyone in the Pirates' pen, so he was the choice.
The Cardinals sent up Jeremy Hazelbaker, another left-handed bat, to pinch-hit, and Watson set them all down 1-2-3.
"He made it look so easy," Feliz recalled observing from beyond center field.
Feliz would make it look just as easy with a 1-2-3 against right-handed bats Matt Holliday, Randal Grichuk and Stephen Piscotty.
"I'm happy whenever they give me the ball," he said with a slight shrug. "But this was nice. Tony had the matchups, and it worked really well."
• Feliz has a chance to reemerge without being overwhelmed.
To repeat, there's a real history. He erupted into the majors at age 21 with Texas and piled up 74 saves in 84 opportunities in his first two-plus seasons. Tommy John surgery set him back, but that's more routinely overcome than ever. It just takes some longer than others.
This spring, he made six scoreless appearances and was "dirty the whole time," as Josh Harrison described. He wasn't pristine, but the stuff was still there.
In Texas, then Detroit, the situation in front of Feliz was that he had to be the star closer everyone remembered or he'd be a bust. Here, he's just another guy.
"This is a great, great group," he said. "I'm so happy to be here."
• Watson can breathe a bit more easily, too.
It would be nuts to think he couldn't have handled being the closer had Melancon been traded. But it would be equally nuts to think he's selfish enough to prefer that scenario.
"I want to win," Watson said. "I'll say it again. We've got the best closer anywhere."
Photos from Pirates Opening Day at PNC Park -- DKPS• Melancon's back.
Yeah, that, too.
He might not have appeared to be at his sharpest Sunday, conceding the Cardinals' lone run in the ninth, but that came on a bloop single, a hit batsman and a soft liner, all with a four-run cushion. Unlike the beginning of last season, he also showed peak velocity -- 92-93 mph -- all through the spring and into this opener. There's sub-zero cause for concern.
"Oh, I felt totally fine," he said when I ran through the inning. "If you look at the contact they had, all of it was soft. You just keep working and get it done."
I then asked how much it meant to be back. As I reminded, he spoke all the right words on this topic for months, about how it's a business, he'd been traded before, blah, blah. So I pressed a bit for more.
"Honestly?" he replied. "I really am glad it worked out the way it did. This was what I wanted. I love the city. I've got friends here. My family loves it. I've got great teammates in here. And I'm part of something special."
The team, he meant. But he might as well have meant the bullpen that's now, thanks to a smart change of heart, the foundation of that team.
