DENVER -- I hate no-hitters.
It's a character flaw, I'll confess, one that goes way back to childhood. I grew up with the Lumber Company. I believed in bats.
And to carry this further, I always felt it was kind of cool that the Pirates had gone more than four full decades without being no-hit. From Bob Gibson in 1971 to Homer Bailey in 2012. Even through almost all of the 20-season losing streak, the one indignity that the franchise hadn't had to suffer was being no-hit until Bailey in the last of those.
Why the hate?
Well, besides being a bit odd, I find no-hitters to be embarrassing. I find them to be the ultimate ... emasculation, for lack of a better word, of a baseball team. Maybe of any team in any sport. Batter after batter after batter gets sent back to the dugout without being able to do the thing they're supposed to be able to do the best. Individually at first, collectively at the end, they're stripped of their dignity.
So no, if all that didn't make it clear enough, I wasn't exactly crushed when Ka'ai Tom, of all people, broke up Germán Márquez's no-hitter at Coors Field, of all places, with this looper into right to open the ninth inning ...
... in the Pirates' 8-0 whitewashing by the Rockies on this Tuesday night.
History was erased. This mile-high setting had been home to only one no-hitter, that by the Dodgers' Hideo Nomo in 1996, the year after the park opened, and never by a Colorado pitcher. And it was easy to see, from the crescendoing buildup of the 27,915 on hand, who might as well have been witnessing the original Moon landing, that this meant a lot to a lot of people.
Just not to 9-year-old me.
That me, which preceded super-serious journalist me by a decade or so, viewed this from one perspective: The Pirates getting no-hit is embarrassing.
Because, you know, it actually is. Even from the adult scope.
In addition to the aforementioned ignominy that would've been absorbed, the Pirates still, even with Tom's hit, were shut out in back-to-back games at Coors. That's now happened all of, um, three times. In a quarter-century.
That's embarrassing.
There have been only 14 shutouts ever at Coors. The Pirates, who visit here once a year, own five of them, including one of the other sets of back-to-backs, in 2002.
This is embarrassing, too.
The ball travels an average of 9% farther here, 5,280 feet above sea level, which allows even Elias Diaz to pummel 440-foot-plus blasts on consecutive nights. The one Tuesday off Chase De Jong was one of a common Colorado hit total of 15 that included two doubles by Marquez. Giving the evening's pitcher two more extra-base hits than the visitors have mustered in these first two games here.
Because extra-base hits are hard here:
Check out this gap in left-center right this second. My God. And there’s a no-hitter happening. In this place. pic.twitter.com/xFlRLq6Jkq
— Dejan Kovacevic (@Dejan_Kovacevic) June 30, 2021
That's embarrassing, too.
Yeah, I know the context. They'd won six of nine upon arrival here, fresh off maybe their best series of the summer in taking three of four in St. Louis, and they've been better in some ways than many had expected.
But I also know that there are specific situations, fair or not -- think Will Craig forgetting first base, Ke'Bryan Hayes bypassing first base, a 20-1 loss in Atlanta, the 10-game losing streak -- that weigh more than others on the perception scale. And don't think for a second that doesn't count in the broader build-up of this organization.
In warfare, they call the concept 'hearts and minds,' where the soldiers, tanks and bombs do the fighting but there's a concurrent campaign to convince the affected citizenry that they're in the right. It hasn't always worked, but the motive's simple: The more support we've got, the better the chance we'll have to outlast our opposition.
Comparing Ben Cherington's construction of the Pirates to Vietnam-era leaflets being dropped from planes is almost as bizarre as hating no-hitters, but stick with me: This plan won't be executed quickly. It can't be. Too much time has to elapse for all these promising teenagers to reach Pittsburgh. And within that time, doubt can creep into the picture. Not just from the outside, but also from the inside. Through the system, both coaches and players alike. I've seen it before, believe me. It's poison.
In short, the Pirates must -- and I mean bleeping must -- guard against outright embarrassment at every stage of this.
Including right now.
The lineup that Derek Shelton posted on this Tuesday afternoon was a joke. Partly because Bryan Reynolds was getting a day off less than two weeks before the All-Star break, partly because Colin Moran was hit by a pitch the previous night ... but mostly because it was just a joke beyond Adam Frazier and Ke'Bryan Hayes at leadoff and second: Ben Gamel (.217) was at third, Gregory Polanco (.196) was at cleanup, then Jacob Stallings (.224), Phillip Evans (.208), Kevin Newman (.211) and Tom (.137).
That's embarrassing, too.
Erik Gonzalez took this swing as a pinch-hitter in the sixth ...
... one that saw the tip of his bat wind up in Wyoming.
That's embarrassing, No. 2.
And this has to change, whether through internal or external means, like, by the time the charter touches down Wednesday night at Pittsburgh International. I appreciate that Class AAA Indianapolis' lineup isn't exactly overflowing with options, but I'm also aware that the waiver wire continuously carry position players who are better at hitting than routinely going hitless in 11 consecutive at-bats, as Evans has, or producing three whole hits in 41 at-bats since late May, as Tom has.
These players aren't part of anyone's future anywhere, so why are they still here?
And the same, sadly, can be spoken for half of the regular lineup. It's OK to slump. It's not OK to be catastrophic.
I'll say it again: Guard against being embarrassed.
I'll say this, too, even if I'm not yet fully sure how I feel about it: In the ninth inning, as Tom strode to the box for his fateful hit, it wasn't the still-available Reynolds who went to the on-deck circle to pinch-hit. It was .154-hitting Michael Perez.
I did a double-take at the time and, afterward, asked Shelton if he'd had any intention of using Reynolds to try to break up the no-hitter: "No, I was not gonna use Reynolds. In an 8-0 game, I was gonna give him the day off."
That was the end of the answer, and I'm sure it'll satisfy some. And maybe it'll satisfy me, too, once I get around to thinking about it like an adult.
Or maybe I'll wonder if avoiding embarrassment isn't prioritized enough with these Pirates.
THE GAME
• Yeah, I did ask Shelton why Reynolds was rested: "Going into this road trip, I told all these guys which days they were going to have off. Today’s just his day."
Frazier was rested the previous night here, though he was used late as a pinch-hitter in a 2-0 loss. Not the same scenario, obviously.
• Semi-upbeat news on Moran, also from Shelton: "He continues to improve and, hopefully, we'll get more improvement before game time. We had imaging done last night, and the imaging was clean, so I think we'll go with that until something feels different or we need to do something else."
• Márquez would've joined Ubaldo Jiménez as the only Colorado pitchers to throw a no-hitter, with the latter's coming in 2010 in Atlanta.
He was terrific. I don't mean to take away from that. Regardless of the lineup, he faced one batter above minimum, needed only 92 pitches to go the distance, pumped 65 of them for strikes, fanned five, walked one and hit a batter. In doing so, he recorded the second complete-game one-hitter in franchise history.
Oh, he had the other one, too.
“I knew it," Marquez replied when asked if he was aware of what was happening in the later innings. "I had that feeling, you know? When my fastball command is good, everything comes through. My slider was sharp today. My curveball was amazing today. I think my curveball was really good today.”
Not the hideous hanger to Tom, though.
"One bad pitch."
And losing the no-hitter.
"You know, it is what it is."
• Márquez reacted beautifully, repeatedly saluting the fans near the dugout well after the final out, when so many were still waiting to applaud even more. Márquez, Diaz and their families posed for a picture to commemorate the moment.
As Bud Black, Colorado's manager, described the scene: "Tonight was a night to hug. To hug German. A special night."
Whatever. Still glad he didn't get it.
For anyone who hates themselves as much as I hate no-hitters, press play for all the highlights:
THE ESSENTIALS
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
1. Adam Frazier, 2B
2. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
3. Ben Gamel, CF
4. Gregory Polanco, RF
5. Jacob Stallings, C
6. Phillip Evans,1B
7. Kevin Newman, 2B
8. Ka'ai Tom, LF
9. Chase De Jong, RHP
And for Black's Rockies:
1. Raimel Tapia, LF
2. Yonathan Daza, CF
3. Charlie Blackmon, RF
4. Trevor Story, SS
5. Ryan McMahon, 3B
6. Garrett Hampson, 2B
7. Joshua Fuentes, 1B
8. Elias Diaz, C
9. Germán Márquez, RHP
THE SCHEDULE
There's one more this afternoon. Chad Kuhl (2-4, 5.05) vs. Jon Gray (4-6, 3.97), first pitch at 3:10 p.m. Eastern. After that, they'll fly home for four with the Brewers, that series opening with Wil Crowe and JT Brubaker. I've got this, and then I'm flying home, too.
IN THE SYSTEM
THE CONTENT
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