At an earlier point in just about every other season, teams run out of spring training narratives. This is not your average season. Since they gathered in Bradenton this February, the Pirates have maintained that they will need a multitude of pitchers to cover a full, 162-game season following the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign.
Obviously, the best way to make up all that ground is by rostering a group of starters that can eat up some innings. So far, as the team has played the same numbers of games as they had the year prior, there are only a couple of starters holding up their end of the bargain.
Tyler Anderson has worked at least five innings in all 12 of his starts with the Pirates this season. No matter how his outing goes, and some of them can go really, really sour, he fights through.
“Sometimes it's survival, sometimes you're cruising, sometimes it's a little bit of both,” Anderson said. “You just try to keep throwing as many pitches as you can and use as much as you can.”
He had one of his better outings Wednesday night despite taking the loss in a 2-1 game against the Dodgers on Wednesday night at PNC Park. Anderson fell to 3-6 on the season, and the Pirates’ 60-game record moved to 23-37.
Although he took the loss, Anderson continued a run that no other Pirates’ pitcher has been able to maintain this season. He went six innings, allowing two runs on a pair of Justin Turner solo shots, while issuing a pair of walks and logging two strikeouts against a very talented Dodgers lineup.
“He kept them off balance. The cutter was good. The changeup was good again,” Derek Shelton said. “He kept a really good lineup stacked with right-handed hitters off balance and executed pitches all night.”
In terms of covering the roughly 1,400 innings that it takes to make it through a full season, Anderson has consistently shown he could be the most reliable. JT Brubaker isn’t far behind in a total innings count, and he’s also gone five in nine of his 11 starts. But after a pandemic-shortened season, it’s going to take a lot more than just two guys who might barely reach 150 innings over the course of a season.
That goal will become even tougher to achieve if Anderson is traded sometime in the next six weeks before the deadline.
It should be noted that five innings is a pretty low bar to set. But all bets are off in a year where the Pirates are both trying to understand how pitchers will react after the short season, regardless of results, and figuring out who on staff will stick around for the Pirates’ next chapter -- which should be a lot better than the previous few.
Outside of Anderson and Brubaker, the rest of the rotation is really having problems going deep into games.
Mitch Keller, who will make his scheduled start Thursday, had a nice stretch at the end of May, rattling off three consecutive five-inning outings. But he’s had too many early departures to be a safe bet to begin getting length out of his starts.
While Keller has been Jekyll and Hyde in his alternating from good start to bad start, Chad Kuhl is an even less certain roll of the dice, especially after his extended absence with right shoulder discomfort. The club’s opening day starter did well to complete six innings in his latest outing against the Marlins on Sunday. But he has not shown that he can be consistent in doing so.
From there, it’s a mix of rookies and veterans, very few of which are healthy.
Trevor Cahill lasted the first eight turns through the rotation, and was actually getting through five frames on a consistent basis before injuring his calf on May 19. He’s been symptom-free during his latest sim games, but the club doesn’t seem too eager to get him back.
Chase De Jong has only made two starts with the Pirates since being recalled, but his results also point to the idea that Ben Cherington targeted veteran arms for the express purpose of making up for lost time from 2020.
Again, this is all ignorant of the results of those innings, which puts that bar way down where it is for 2021. Don't fret too much because there certainly are sunnier days ahead for the Pirates’ rotation, just not this Pirates’ rotation.
Cody Ponce and Miguel Yajure have already filled in as spot starters. The former has hit that magic number of five innings plenty this season, including his one turn in the rotation with the Pirates. But Yajure will be shut down for the rest of the month with ulnar neuritis, and will hopefully begin throwing again in the next week or so as his rehab transitions to Bradenton.
But there are two reasons this is worth pondering in the present. First, it might help forecast exactly when and where opportunities may arise for minor-leaguers like Max Kranick or Roansy Contreras to get their chances at this level. And it also sheds some more light on what’s been an excellent season from some of the horses in the bullpen.
Sam Howard, Clay Holmes and David Bednar appeared in their 29th, 26th and 25th games, respectively, Wednesday night against the Dodgers. That’s an absurd pace for any reliever over the course of a 162-game season. But despite burning a trail through the outfield from the bullpen to the mound, they’re performing better than what could reasonably be expected.
Holmes in particular has posted some dumbfounding numbers pretty much all season. He allowed six runs over his first 2 ⅓ innings of the season and just two more in the next 25 frames to this point.
“Clay's nasty,” Anderson said. “He's been throwing the ball well all year, and he takes the ball every day it seems like, and he's just, he's got great stuff and he competes, and he's out there. And he's always good to see behind you out there.”
Holmes has gone 16 appearances since he last gave up a run.
The Pirates have six guys in that bullpen that have appeared in more than one third of the team’s games this season. This pace is not really sustainable. And the only way to provide some help for this group is to get more length out of their starters.
Anderson seems up to the task, but if his days are numbered, it’s going to leave a very big gap.
• There was a pretty epic eight-pitch battle to finish this game between Kenley Jansen and Ke’Bryan Hayes that ended up with Jansen on his rear end to secure his 14th save of the season.
That liner was 90.2-mph off the bat and looked to be exactly how the Dodgers’ closer described it: “A big rush.”
The Hayes’ misstep from Tuesday is obviously still very fresh in the memory banks, but it’s battles like this one that remind of how special of a player he can be for the Pirates. There aren’t many other players in the dugout that Shelton would prefer to be at the plate in that spot. Actually, maybe just Jacob Stallings, and that’s based solely on recent performance.
“He hit the ball hard,” Shelton said while also recalling the number of breaks the Pirates did not catch as they went 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position. “We’ve created scoring opportunities, and we’ve not gotten the big hit at times. And we’ve hit the ball hard.”
• That one hit with RISP needed the assistance of an official scorer.
Gregory Polanco recorded the Pirates’ only RBI on a two-out, bases-loaded line drive in the opening inning that seemed to land in the webbing of Albert Pujols’ glove at first base, but instead ricocheted into short right field for a single.
Before the game, Polanco and Erik Gonzalez were getting some extra work with assistant hitting coach Christian Marrero. Polanco, who has spoken about how important it is for him to not get too long in his swing and be more direct to the ball, was taking soft toss from Marrero while there was a screen right over the middle of the plate.
“It’s a drill that's been used for a long time just to make you stay short to the ball,” Shelton said. “What you're seeing is just work on the field instead of in the cage because you can watch the flight of the ball. It's a common occurrence in every major league ballpark. It’s a drill that when I was a hitting coach I did almost every day on the field.”
It’s impressive to see the guy getting the extra work in batting practice actually produce that same night. And, man, is Polanco the guy that really, really needs it. That knock was his only hit in four at-bats Wednesday, and he’s 10 for 62 (.168) in the 17 games since his truly impressive series in St. Louis in mid-May.
THE ESSENTIALS
Boxscore
Scoreboard
Standings
Statistics
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
Adam Frazier, 2B
Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
Bryan Reynolds, CF
Colin Moran, 1B
Gregory Polanco, RF
Kevin Newman, SS
Michael Perez, C
Ka'ai Tom, LF
Tyler Anderson, P
And for Dave Roberts' Dodgers:
Mookie Betts, RF
Chris Taylor, 2B
Justin Turner, 3B
Albert Pujols, 1B
Cody Bellinger, CF
AJ Pollock, LF
Will Smith, C
Gavin Lux, SS
Tony Gonsolin, P
THE SCHEDULE
The Pirates play the YouTube game on Thursday afternoon in the series finale against the Dodgers. Keller starts against left-hander Julio Urias in the finale before the Pirates hit the road for three games in Milwaukee and three more in Washington.
THE CONTENT
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