ATLANTA -- With a funky leg-kick and some veteran craftiness over the first few weeks of the season, it seemed that the Pirates had plucked an effective front-line starter off the late free-agent clearance rack.
That could eventually still be the case. But after Tyler Anderson’s past two starts, the Pirates would probably be fortunate if he were any of the three: Effective, front-line or a starter.
Anderson and the Pirates were on the wrong side of history during a 20-1 loss to the Braves at Truist Park on Friday night.
“It’s actually easier to move on from a game like this,” Derek Shelton said. “The games that are 4-1, 4-3, there’s situations where you look back and say, ‘OK, this could’ve been different, this could’ve been different.’ Tonight we just got beat. You just move on from it and come back out tomorrow.”
Atlanta, who leads all of baseball with 72 homers, became the first team to ever hit two grand slams in a seven-homer game.
“When you come in leading the league in homers, with the guys they have at the top of their lineup and the way they swing the bat, that’s why they’re leading the league in homers,” Shelton said. “They get after it. They’re aggressive. They capitalize on mistakes, and tonight we just made too many mistakes.”
Even with an inning of Wilmer Difo on the mound in mop-up duty, most of the Braves’ scoring, including the homers, came against Anderson. The lefty was torched for nine runs on 10 hits and a pair of walks over five innings.
“A one like that, you just want to flush it. But you want to go out there, attack and get ahead and throw strikes and make good pitches,” Anderson said. “That’s what you want to do every single time, but sometimes it doesn’t go that way ... and they just get hit.”
Anderson has not been the same pitcher that nearly went the distance in Chicago two weeks ago. That guy would be unrecognizable Friday night.
His problems with keeping the ball in the park are quickly becoming a trend. The 31-year-old has surrendered five long balls in his past two outings, including three against the Braves.
In fairness, he gave up a grand slam to Ronald Acuna Jr. and a two-run homer to Ozzie Albies on pitches that were far enough outside the zone that it would be impressive to simply put the ball in play. Acuna drove a changeup that was a couple inches off the plate to the opposite field and Albies went down and golfed a 78-mph change that was well below the strike zone.
Sure, take Friday night with a grain of salt considering the Braves' home-run prowess -- Kyle Keller and Chasen Shreve both gave up long balls in relief. But the Braves also put six balls in play against Anderson with exit velocities greater than 100 mph -- four of which were at least 107 mph off the bat.
Anything hit that hard will eventually leave the building. Austin Riley, who was twice involved in hitting back-to-back homers, crushed a first-pitch cutter 419 feet and 109.6 mph for a homer on the next pitch after Albies’ long ball.
For a guy that relies on deception and soft contact, this should be a disturbing development for Anderson.
“Sometimes it comes in bunches. Sometimes it doesn’t,” he said. “Sometimes you’ll go out and shove and not give up a homer. Or go for four or five, throw the exact same game, and sometimes guys hit pitches. We’ll see. We’ll just continue to go at it, make good pitches and see where it goes.”
Following Anderson’s first real tough outing this past Saturday against the Giants, in which he dug the Pirates into a four-run hole by the third inning, Shelton was impressed by the veterans ability to stop the bleeding and keep the Pirates in the game, which they eventually won on Jacob Stallings’ walk-off homer.
But on Friday night, the hits just kept on coming. And coming. And coming.
“With the Giants, I feel like I didn’t really execute pitches very well. The hits that they got were just non-executed pitches,” Anderson said. “Today I felt like – it’s weird to say – but I felt like the pitches that they hit were executed. If you look at the homers that they hit and the pitches that they hit, they were all pretty good pitches. Some of ‘em, most of ‘em or all of ‘em were good pitches in good counts, stuff that you would think are pretty safe pitches.”
If his own assessment is at all accurate -- he did strike out seven for the fourth time this season, so it’s not all bad -- Anderson should be able to regain some of what made him one of the Pirates’ best starters through the first six weeks of the season. And odds are that Step 1 in getting back to that place will be to keep the ball in the park.
Until then, the bloom seems to be off the rose with Anderson. At least for now.
MORE FROM THIS GAME
• The Pirates really couldn’t get much going against Braves starter Ian Anderson. They only put two runners into scoring position during his six innings of work, in which he fanned six. Shelton said Ian Anderson was effective with an uncommon four-seam changeup, which spins just like a fastball.
“It doesn’t have a ton of action to it, down. It just stays true,” the skipper said. “When you’re able to do that and ride it off his fastball, it makes him very difficult. Tonight he had a really good changeup. And his curveball was better. It looked like a little more usage tonight.”
The Pirates had 11 total hits, all of which were singles. They scraped a run across on Will Craig’s infield roller in the ninth inning. Every starter in the lineup except for Ildemaro Vargas recorded a hit and Erik Gonzalez was on base three times with a pair of singles.
Obviously, the offensive effort isn’t a point of focus in a game like this.
• Not very often will a game feature a mound visit from a pitching coach to talk to a position player. But twice in Shelton’s coaching career has he seen it done, and both times for the same odd reason.
“The guy was throwing too hard and we had to tell him to throw it softer,” Shelton said. “When you throw right at the BP speed and it’s straight, it’s fairly easy for major league hitters to hit. We were just trying to get him to throw it a tad bit softer.”
Long after this game reached its comedic apex, Difo entered a 12-0 contest for the first pitching appearance of his professional career. He surrendered eight runs, including a grand slam to Ehire Adrianza, and had some zip on an 85-88 mph fastball -- which is not much slower than Anderson’s average four-seam velocity.
“I think Stallings summed it up best: Difo just didn’t have his best stuff tonight,” Shelton joked.
Of all the “bad looks” for the game of baseball, position players pitching should be on the list. It’s dumb.
• Once the game had become a rout, Cole Tucker was able to make his season debut in the later innings. He lined into a double play and struck out looking.
THE ESSENTIALS
Box score
Video Highlights
Scoreboard
Standings
Statistics
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
Adam Frazier, 2B
Kevin Newman, SS
Bryan Reynolds, CF
Gregory Polanco, RF
Jacob Stallings, C
Ildemaro Vargas, 3B
Erik Gonzalez, 1B
Ben Gamel, LF
Tyler Anderson, P
And for Brian Snitker's Braves:
Ronald Acuna Jr., RF
Freddie Freeman, 1B
Marcell Ozuna, LF
Ozzie Albies, 2B
Austin Riley, 3B
Dansby Swanson, SS
Kevan Smith, C
Guillermo Heredia, CF
Ian Anderson, P
THE SCHEDULE
The Pirates conclude their series in Atlanta with a pair of day games this weekend. Mitch Keller (2-5, 7.16 ERA) gets the nod against a yet to be determined Braves starter that is scheduled to deliver the first pitch at 4:10 p.m.
THE CONTENT
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