Shelton sending mixed messages with quick hooks

JT Brubaker noticed the bullpen was starting to throw after he allowed a one-out double to Eddie Rosario in the seventh inning. 

He still thought he had a chance to finish the inning.

“I knew I needed to get [Harold] Ramirez and thought once I got Ramirez, [I] had a chance of facing [Josh] Naylor,” Brubaker said.

Brubaker had been brilliant to that point, with that double being only the third Indians baserunner he had allowed on the afternoon. He bounced back by getting Ramirez -- the man responsible for the first Indians run via a fifth inning solo shot -- to bounce out softly. 

He wouldn’t get a chance to finish the inning. The decision had been made before Brubaker had even taken the hill for a seventh time.

“It was the matchup,” Derek Shelton explained. “JT did a heck of a job. I mean, he threw the ball extremely well. Was extremely efficient. We went into that inning, if we had a guy on base and we had the left-hander there, we were going to go to [Chasen] Shreve.”

The move ended up backfiring. Shreve got a ground ball from Naylor, but it found a hole to right field, resulting in the deciding tally in the Pirates’ 2-1 loss Sunday at PNC Park.

Quick hooks have become a recurring theme for the Pirates this year, especially of late. Over their last six games, there were four outings where the starter was pulled when they were between 71 and 77 pitches. None of them were because of the pitcher just didn’t have it:

June 14 -- JT Brubaker, 5 IP, 2 ER, 4 H, 2 BB, 1 K, 71 pitches
June 16 -- Chase De Jong, 4 IP, 1 ER, 4 H, 2 BB, 5 K, 71 pitches
June 18 -- Chad Kuhl, 6 IP, 1 ER, 4 H, 1 BB, 4 K, 77 pitches
June 20 -- Brubaker, 6 ⅔ IP, 2 ER, 3 H, 0 BB, 9 K, 76 pitches

That’s a collective 2.49 ERA over those four starts, all of which were ended by managerial decision, not because of an injury or the pitcher’s spot coming up in the order. (While Kuhl was pinch-hit for, Shelton admitted the following day that he was coming out either way.)

Brubaker was the best of the bunch Sunday, matching a career-high nine strikeouts, the most of any Pirate pitcher this year. 

The matchup of Shreve vs. Naylor wasn’t necessarily a bad one. Shreve had stranded 10 of his 11 inherited runners coming into the game, and Naylor was batting just .189 with a .520 OPS against southpaws. Had that ground ball been at someone, the Pirates would still have a very good chance of winning.

But it’s the inconsistencies of those pulls that’s puzzling.

Health will always be paramount with any decisions regarding pitchers this year, especially now that just about everyone has crest over their 2020 competitive workloads.

That goes even more so for someone like Brubaker, who missed almost all of 2019 with an elbow injury and took some time away from the team in May because of a loss in his family.

“I missed 10 days, so [they’re] trying to get my arm back into the shape of going deeper into games for health,” Brubaker said about his two starts leading up to Sunday’s.

This one was solely based off of the situation.

That’s been the common theme of those other early pulls, the situation. Not necessarily in terms of runners on base, but the context of their last inning. Sometimes getting out of a big jam is a sign that it should be a day for a starter because of the pressure pitches they had to throw.

It’s not always the easiest talk to have with a pitcher, but...

"You have to grow to have that (conversation)," Shelton said before Saturday’s game. “The one part about it is you get to go farther in games if you’re more efficient and you get to go farther in games if you execute. Let’s use Chase's game the other day. He threw 71 [pitches], empties the tank and gets out of [a jam in] the fourth with it being a one-run game. If you’re thinking, ‘I’m going to conserve for the fifth or the sixth,’ you’re not pitching in the fifth or the sixth because you probably give up those runs in the fourth.

"What we want our young pitchers especially to think about is the fact that we’re focusing on every single pitch."

When I asked about that emptying the tank strategy again Sunday, here’s how Shelton responded:

“Our guys have done a good job of emptying the tank and finishing,” Shelton said. “We’ve made decisions. Sometimes, they’ve worked; sometimes, they haven’t. But today, that was about the matchup we wanted, we got. We just didn’t get the ground ball at somebody.”

Ok, but if it was the matchup Shelton wanted, why didn’t he tell Brubaker before he went out for the seventh? The righty acknowledged that he was probably going to get pinch-hit for in the bottom half of the inning. Instead, he left the game with gas still in the tank. 

Or how about this: The whole point of this year is to get better every day. There are no delusions of this group competing this year. The goal is to give players opportunities to prove themselves to see who on the roster could actually be part of a competitive club in a couple years.

Brubaker didn’t get that chance. Nor did he get a chance at a win, or a chance to show he can come through in a clutch opportunity.

Or a chance to finish the best start of his career leaving the mound triumphant, rather than watching it from the bench.

MORE FROM THE GAME

• Going back to Shelton's decision to go to a lefty against Naylor, before the game, the Pirates placed Sam Howard on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to Saturday. Lefty reliever Austin Davis was recalled from Indianapolis to take his spot.

“It’s something that he’s been dealing with on and off but he felt it in the last outing, so we made the decision to IL him," Shelton said.

Howard allowed six runs in his last outing Friday, skyrocketing his season ERA from 2.45 to 4.44. Up until that outing, he had been one of the bullpen's most reliable arms, and Shelton's go-to lefty.

If Howard had been available, would Shreve still have been the pitcher Shelton would have gone to in the seventh?

“It’s a lefty-lefty matchup but we like Shreve right there with the split and slider," Shelton said. "We got what we wanted. We got a ground ball that wasn’t hit very hard. We just got a ground ball that went between two guys.”

Shelton said there wasn't a discussion about Brubaker potentially putting on Naylor to get to journeyman backup catcher Ryan Lavarnway, who had struck out twice to that point.

Davis threw a scoreless seventh to keep the Pirates within arm's length.

• What shouldn't be lost in the decision to pull Brubaker was that he was outstanding.

It started from the first inning, where he retired the Indians in order on just four pitches. He relied primarily on the fastball early, setting up his breaking stuff later.

"The first time through the lineup, we didn’t really have to show them the slider too much, which we were able to do the second and third time through," Jacob Stallings said.

Brubaker's slider was the wipeout pitch of the day, getting six of his nine punchouts with it. All told, the Indians went 1-for-12 against the pitch and whiffed 11 times on 21 swings. It was either in or just jumping out of the zone all day, with only three of 27 sliders were called for balls.

That one hit was the Rosario double, though it was below the strike zone.

• Then again, it's tough to win when you only score one run. That tally came on a Stallings two-out single in the sixth, playing Adam Frazier. The Pirates managed just six hits on the day, with the only extra-base knock being a first inning Bryan Reynolds bloop double that nicked off Cesar Hernandez's glove.

"I don’t think there was a common theme," Stallings said on the offense's performance. "Just kind of one of those days I guess."

The Pirates had a chance to tie it in the seventh, putting runners on the corners with one out, but pinch-hitter Gregory Polanco popped up the first pitch he say and Adam Frazier lifted a flyout to end the inning.

• Factoid of the Game: Brubaker's four pitch first inning was the fewest amount of pitches for any Pirates starter since at least the start of the pitch tracking era in 2008. The last to do it in five was Trevor Williams on Sept. 29, 2019.

Feels like it's been a while since there was a good factoid.

THE ESSENTIALS

Boxscore
Scoreboard
Standings
Statistics

THE LINEUPS

Shelton's card:

Adam Frazier, 2B
Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
Bryan Reynolds, CF
Jacob Stallings, C
Phillip Evans, RF
Ben Gamel, LF
Kevin Newman, SS
Erik González, 1B
JT Brubaker, P

And for Terry Francona' Indians:

Cesar Hernandez, 2B
Amed Rosario, SS
Bobby Bradley, 1B
Eddie Rosario, LF
Harold Ramirez, CF
Josh Naylor, RF
Ryan Lavarnway, C
Ernie Clement, 3B
Sam Hentges, P

THE SCHEDULE

The Pirates will enjoy their final off-day before the All-Star break Monday. They'll start playing host the White Sox Tuesday. Tyler Anderson (3-7, 4.89) will take on Lucas Giolito (5-5, 3.86), who did something memorable against the Pirates last season. First pitch will be at 7:05 p.m.

IN THE SYSTEM

• Rodolfo Castro remains the hottest hitting prospect in the Pirates' system at the moment, which is saying something considering he is teammates with Oneil Cruz and Mason Martin in Altoona:

Castro was the focus of our first longer version of In The System, where he told Jarrod Prugar about the lesson he learned from Adam Frazier and Gregory Polanco during his brief promotion to the Majors in April.

• Two bits of news from Indianapolis. The first is Mitch Keller's second relief outing didn't go nearly as well as the first. He walked three over 1 2/3 and allowed an unearned run.

Second, this wild play from Wilmer Difo to end it in the 11th needs to be seen to be believed:

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• Altoona
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• Bradenton

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