Pirates vs. Giants after one inning: 4-0, Pirates.
Pirates vs. Giants after nine innings: 4-1, Pirates.
The Pirates' performance Friday evening at PNC Park was virtually flawless — right until it wasn't.
In the top of the eighth, Starling Marte tracked hard for a fly ball to shallow center. From his shortstop position, Erik Gonzalez turned and did the same. Neither player saw — nor, apparently, heard — the other, and the result was this:
Matt Sunday captured it from a different angle:
It was a scary scene, as both players remained down for several minutes. Gonzalez eventually walked off with minimal assistance, while Marte was carted off the field.
"You hate to see your men laying on the field," Clint Hurdle was saying postgame during his press conference. "It was a yard sale out there — there’s hats, there’s gloves. It’s hard... We'll see where we go from here."
Sunday noticed this:
Left hand/arm for Gonzalez. Wasn’t moving it when he walked off right next to me.#DKPS #Pirates
— Matt Sunday (@mattsunday) April 20, 2019
But nothing was confirmed in the immediate aftermath for either player, and neither was available for comment inside the locker room. Should Gonzalez or Marte miss time, however, it would continue a season-long trend for the Pirates.
The team entered its opening day matchup in Cincinnati down Gregory Polanco and Lonnie Chisenhall in the outfield and Elias Diaz at catcher, then Corey Dickerson was placed on the 10-day injured list on April 4. This has resulted in some wacky and wild lineups from Hurdle and company early on, including Colin Moran playing left field and the constant shuffling of players such as Pablo Reyes, JB Shuck and Jason Martin.
Even tonight, in addition to the Marte-Gonzalez collision, Jordan Lyles left the game after six innings with what was described as a "right hand contusion." He took a line drive to the hand on what became an inning-ending double play. While that one may ultimately prove to be nothing but a flesh wound, it's still another stroke of bad luck for an already injury-riddled team.
“We’re good, just a little precautionary," Lyles said postgame at his locker. "I got clipped on a couple fingers with the ball… In between innings, it started to swell up a little bit. I felt like we might have been better off with another guy out there. [It] just lost a little feeling, but we’re good to go. We did some tests, and we’re good to go. I’ll be ready for my next start.”
Despite all this, the team is 11-6. They've won 10 of their last 13, and they nearly blanked the Giants in this one at home. It's no surprise to Hurdle, who told me the ability to adapt and overcome isn't just part of this particular team's identity, it's been part of the Pirates' identity for years:
Shuck, a newcomer to the Pirates' organization this year, is already buying into that ethos.
"We really just try to play team ball," he told me at his locker after this one. "Unfortunately, injuries are part of it. You never want to see anybody go down. Especially tonight, that was a tough one. They were full speed and hopefully they're OK."
And in a strange way, the injuries might be helping this squad early in the 2019 campaign. Sure, you don't want to lose the talent and the bats, but ...
If Marte or Gonzalez miss significant time after today, they're going to need to do a whole lot more of that type of rallying to stay atop the Central.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THE GOOD
Usually, we try to zero in on one or two specific facets here, but uhh... there was a lotta good for the Pirates in this one. I gotta go bulleted list on you:
• Lyles put up another fantastic outing with six strikeouts in six innings, zero runs and just one walk. It's looking more and more like choosing the "weak link" in the Pirates' rotation is going to be like picking the slowest Ferrari out of a group. Early on, there's no bad option among them.
• Francisco Cervelli broke out of his 24 at-bat hitless streak with a two-run double in the first.
Hurdle, of course, never feared on that one.
"He was going to get a hit. He was going to get another hit this year," Hurdle said. "I think he may have exhaled harder than anybody. I was confident. We were confident he was going to get another hit."
I'm not going to say I called it necessarily ... but I did set the stage:
Bell singles into right field. Two on, two outs for Francisco Cervelli. This would be quite the time to bust out of his slump. #dkps #pirates
— Hunter Alek Homistek (@HunterAHomistek) April 20, 2019
• For the sixth straight game, the team committed no errors. Jung Ho Kang made a couple of solid throws from third, Josh Bell flashed his glove on a few scoops at first and the team played sound defensively. Take away the Gonzalez-Marte collision, and their performance was practically perfect.
"We’ve turned a number of double plays in the last week or so, so it’s been fun to watch our defense continue to get better," Hurdle said after the game.
• Melky Cabrera isn't just leading the team with a .340 batting average. He's also doing stuff like this:
Melky’s ??? #DKPS #Pirates pic.twitter.com/p0p33trnpb
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPghSports) April 20, 2019
Turning a double play at home to end the inning? That's the kind of stuff that can swing the momentum of a game. And in Lyles' eyes, it did.
"I think the game kind of came down to the first inning when we were able to put up the four-spot, and then the top of the second when we were able to get that flyout double-play at home," he said. "They could’ve got back in the game with a lot of energy on their side and kind of swayed the energy. But Melky made a tremendous throw and we were able to get out of that, and then we kind of settled down.”
• Felipe Vazquez is just... I mean, I can't get enough of this guy. Twelve pitches. Eleven strikes. Three batters. Three strikeouts. Just watch:
That's his sixth save of the season. Filthy.
THE BAD
Gonzalez. Just ... Gonzalez, man. His lone hit in three plate appearances was a two-out bunt down the first base line to bring Lyles to the plate, raising his batting average on the year to .216. He injured Marte. He injured himself. It's a trend with him, as Dejan Kovacevic pointed out:
Not to be that guy, but that’s not the first time Erik Gonzalez has gotten into that kind of trouble out there. In Bradenton, too. That’s the center fielder’s ball 100 times out of 100. #DKPS #Pirates
— Dejan Kovacevic (@Dejan_Kovacevic) April 20, 2019
Hurdle wasn't ready or willing to place blame anywhere in his postgame press conference, but that's the center fielder's ball.
And the crowd of 15,049 wet fans wasn't making too much noise to drown out Marte's call. Not a chance. Either he didn't hear Marte (problem) or he heard Marte and kept running full speed his direction anyway (bigger problem) or neither guy called for the ball at all (biggest problem). No matter how you break down his start to the 2019 season, it's tough to find a way — any way at all — to justify Gonzalez's spot on the roster.
Until you look at the options, of course. Kang has been reluctant to play shortstop and likely doesn't have the range for it. Kevin Newman has been average at his best and a complete, error-producing disaster at his worst, plus he’s injured. There's no good answer here, not as the team is currently constructed.
Shortstop represented the biggest weakness coming into the season, and that hole has only widened through 17 games.
THE OTHER SIDE
Madison Bumgarner may not be the all-galaxy World Series MVP he once was, but he's still good. Really good.
After floundering his way through a disastrous first inning in which he gave up four earned runs, Bumgarner proved his mettle by bouncing back, giving up no more runs and finishing six complete innings. That performance was not lost on Lyles:
Hurdle offered a similar take.
"The guy on the mound out there is tough — as tough as anybody in the league," he said while referencing Bumgarner's first-inning struggles.
Bumgarner's final line: 6 IP, six hits, four earned runs, one walk, seven strikeouts, 3.66 ERA.
The bad news for the Giants is Bumgarner is also second on the team with a .273 batting average. While he is an exceptional hitter by pitcher standards, it's never a good sign when the man on the mound is also wielding one of the team's strongest bats. Nobody who played in today's game for the Giants is hitting over .260 on the year. Again, not great. Not great at all.
THE DATA
• The game operated on a 1 hour, 25-minute delay, beginning at 8:30 p.m. due to rain.
• That's four straight wins for the Pirates and five out of their last six.
• With one hit tonight, Bell broke his career high for consecutive games with a hit (eight).
• Lyles now has 16 strikeouts in his last 12 innings pitched.
• The Pirates have gone 57 innings without an error.
• Lyles' ERA on the year is 0.53 — best in the Major Leagues. Second-best? Joe Musgrove with a 0.81 mark. A third Pirates pitcher, Chris Archer, narrowly misses out on the top 10, coming in at No. 11 with an ERA of 2.00. As a unit, the team entered today's game with the best collective ERA — 2.63 — in the National League. After tonight, they're first in MLB at 2.54, jumping ahead of the Rays, who sit at 2.67.
• Time of game: 2 hours, 48 minutes
THE INJURIES
• Gregory Polanco, outfielder, is recovering from left shoulder surgery and is on a rehab assignment at Triple-A Indianapolis. He is 4-for-12 with four RBIs, two stolen bases, two walks and four strikeouts in three games. In four games with High-A Bradenton, he was 2-for-13 with one RBI, four walks and two strikeouts.
• Corey Dickerson, outfielder, has a strained right shoulder. He began playing catch Tuesday but the expectation is for him to be out until late April/early May.
• Elias Diaz, catcher, is recovering from a virus and is on a rehab assignment at Indianapolis. He is 11-for-25 with three doubles and four RBIs, one walk and three strikeouts in six games. In two games with Bradenton, Diaz was 2-for-5 with two doubles, two RBIs, one stolen base, two walks and one strikeout.
• Lonnie Chisenhall, outfielder, is out with a broken right hand and could begin a rehab assignment this weekend with Indianapolis.
• Kevin Newman, infielder, has a lacerated right ring finger and is throwing and hitting, though there is no timetable for his return.
• Jose Osuna, first baseman/outfielder, is in extended spring training in Bradenton, Fla. and participating in all baseball activities.
• Chad Kuhl and Edgar Santana, right-handed pitchers, are recovering from Tommy John at extended spring training and are throwing on flat ground at 120 feet.
THE SCHEDULE
The Pirates return for Game 2 of this three-game series against the Giants tomorrow at 4:05 p.m. Jameson Taillon (0-2, 3.43) is back on the mound for the Pirates against Derek Holland (1-2, 4.09) of the Giants. John Perrotto will be live on the scene for that one.
THE COVERAGE
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MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Pirates vs. Giants, PNC Park, April 19, 2019 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS
