Trevor Williams continued to falter on the mound in Game 1 of Friday’s doubleheader at PNC Park, allowing all six runs the Cardinals needed to beat the Pirates, 6-5.
It was another installment of the worst stretch of his career, allowing at least five runs in each of his last five starts. Five of his runs allowed Friday were earned, along with seven hits, two home runs and plenty of hard contact allowed.
He is now 1-8 with a 6.70 ERA on the season. Williams has been reworking some aspects of his throwing motion and arm action, and while he has seen some positives come from it, it has not translated into results.
Williams has faith in the work he is doing. The question is do the Pirates have the same faith. Williams is under team control for two years, and was part of the Aug. 31 trade rumors.
Derek Shelton reaffirmed last week that he will not lose a rotation spot this year. That doesn’t guarantee anything for the future, though, in either the rotation or with the team.
"You know, it's something that's outside of my control,” Williams said when presented with the question about his future. “We've had some conversations but nothing as far as what does it look like. I trust in them. I trust in these guys. And you know, I felt like they've trusted me as well. It's something that's out of my control. Just take it when the offseason comes."
The offense didn't do much to help him out, despite posting five runs. Most of those were self inflicted by the Cardinals, including two runs in the first after Carlos Martinez started the frame by walking the bases loaded. Those two runs came home on a catcher's interference and a sacrifice fly by Kevin Newman.
In the seventh, a pair of walks and an error, all with two outs, brought catcher John Ryan Murphy to the plate, but he flew out to the edge of the warning track in left.
Does failing to come through in situations like that just add to the frustrations of this year?
"That is one way to look at it," Murphy said. "I think another way to look at it is we got down early, gave ourselves a chance, a couple of chances at the end, to get it done. We didn't get it done in the end with the few chances that we had, but we gave ourselves chances."
