Kovacevic: This stretch of baseball's one of the worst our city's seen ... and that's not OK

The second the ball skied upward off Bryan Reynolds' bat, it felt more like a mercy killing than the 27th out. 

First-pitch swinging. Eight pitches to retire side. And by the time that ball came down, the Pirates had been beaten by the Cardinals by a count that belied the 4-1 figure on PNC Park's scoreboard on this Tuesday night.

One hit. That was it.

I mean, it was a Hoy Park home run ...

... which I'll discuss in detail below.

But it was one hit. With three walks. With only Park advancing past a single bag.

At the risk of belaboring the blatantly obvious, this is bad. 

And I offer that in the broadest, most conspicuous context possible. Because this season, which has brought its share of ups -- most of them organizationally but plenty right here in Pittsburgh -- has now lapsed into yet another thoroughly non-competitive six-game losing streak that's left the overall record at 41-72, meaning a 22-27 finish is now a must to avoid losing 100 games. 

Which ain't happening, my friends. It'll be 100-plus.

And if/when that day arrives, the Pirates:

• Will have lost 100 for only the ninth time in the franchise's 135-year history, and only the fourth time in the past 66 years, joining 1985, 2001 and 2010. It's not easy to do.

• Will have put together the second-worst set of consecutive seasons in the franchise's history. Including the 19-41 record from the shortened 2020 season, they're currently a combined 60-123 under Ben Cherington and Derek Shelton. That's a .327 winning percentage. Exempting 2020, one has to rewind to 1953 for the last single season with a winning percentage that low (.325), and the only other occasion in which consecutive seasons were this bad was 1952-53, when the dreadful 'Rickey Dinks' went a combined 92-216 for a .299 winning percentage.

• Will have set the stage, should they again perform at this pace in 2022, to rival the worst prolonged stretch of any length in the franchise's history. That, too, would be weighed against that same era, when the 1952-54 teams combined for a .313 winning percentage.

Let me be blunt: This needs to stop. This needs, at the very least, to represent rock bottom for the big-league component to this build.

Look, I'll reiterate, as I've done relentlessly, that I believe in both Cherington and Shelton. Just as I believe that this GM's overarching approach is the smartest I've seen associated with the Pirates in my lifetime. It's the right plan and, to date, it's been matched by execution. And where the manager's concerned, the fundamentals in the field -- defense, baserunning -- are the soundest they've been in a decade, and the general competitiveness -- witnessed only recently in New York and San Francisco -- impressed, as well.

I support this plan, I support this on-field instruction, and I'd be a hypocrite to the extreme to support a clean build while also blasting everyone for 100-plus losses in Pittsburgh.

But again, there's a lot that's got to go wrong in that scenario. And that arguably goes double when that same team's also blessed by breakout performances from Reynolds, Adam Frazier, Richard Rodriguez, David Bednar and a couple others. It means that what's gone wrong around those individuals went really wrong.

This hasn't been nearly good enough. And it can't be repeated.

There aren't any timetables to this build, as Cherington will regularly -- and fairly -- remind. There can't be, with the uncertainty that's inherently attached to baseball prospects, the most mercurial in any sport. I get that. I respect it. And again, I support it.

I asked Shelton before this game if he's gone about setting any team goals for these final few weeks, curious to see if he'd cite avoiding losing 100 or something in that spirit, and he answered, "The mindset is more about the day-to-day work that we’re doing and how it translates into games. I think the biggest thing for us – and we’ve talked about it on a consistent basis – is No. 1, opportunity, and No. 2, getting better and kind of isolating specific things on that. The major part of that is how it transfers into games in a positive or a negative way and how we react off that."

Translated: It's about individual development. Which, one final time, I get, respect and support.

But 2022 will mark Year 3 for this group -- or Year 2.5, if one accounts for the pandemic -- and that's when the progress in Pittsburgh has to at least begin mirroring that in the minors.

• How wholly miserable was this?

Let's just say that John Nogowski's expression in the photo above tells it all.

Or, let's just say that old friend J.A. Happ -- and when I say old, I mean 37 -- took the mound for St. Louis with a 7.12 ERA in 19 starts against all opponents not named the Pirates ... and walked off with 0.68 ERA in two starts against the Pirates, encompassing 13 1/3 innings, just this Park home run, and two total hits conceded.

Shades of 2015, huh?

“I don’t think it’s anything against this team per se,” Happ would say afterward. "But when I did play here … great memories from those couple months, my son J.J. was born here, and just some fun memories kind of coming back and being Downtown in the area here. And the beautiful ballpark, of course.”

• As for the Park home run, as promised:

All hips, all torso. Crazy. The entire upper body -- head, shoulders, arms -- looks like it just gets whipped around by what's beneath.

I asked Shelton, the former hitting coach, about the apparent simplicity of the swing itself into that inner-half Happ fastball.

"It is simple," he replied. "There’s a little bit of thump coming off the bat. It’s a really smooth, easy swing. He creates that torque from his midsection."

I asked Park about this, as well, in part because the lone, lingering knock against him in the Yankees' system had been a lack of power until he homered 10 times in 48 Class AAA games this summer.

“I try to be on time every time. I try to be simple at the plate," Park replied, not coincidentally using that same term. "When I hit the homer, he jammed me, so I was like half-and-half. But it was gone, so I was really happy for that.”  

• Steven Brault again was ... OK. Over five innings, he allowed two runs -- solo blasts pulled into the bleachers by Tommy Edman and Paul DeJong -- but otherwise located his fastball efficiently, which is all that ever matters for him.

Well, that and being entertaining.

"Yeah, I threw pitches down the middle," he recalled of the home runs. "The changeup I threw down the middle to Edman was horrific, and he did exactly what he should do with it. And then DeJong, 3-2 after coming back 3-0, and once again, threw a fastball down the middle, and he did what he should have done with it. But I think that, once I settled down, got into a groove and got into the fastball on my extension side, it worked out."

Hey, he's one of the good ones.

• Erik Gonzalez cleared waivers and was outrighted to Indianapolis. Which keeps the Pirates amazingly -- and depressingly -- near-perfect in this area. The only players claimed all year were Geoff Hartlieb and Michael Feliz. Think about that.

• Gregory Polanco's probably been on waivers every day for three years ... but he's still here, still in the lineup despite going 1 for 19 since his one-night tour de force in Milwaukee, and, yeah, still at the expense of a younger player who's part of the future. Sitting Rodolfo Castro for Polanco is nonsensical to the extreme. And that's coming from someone who both likes and respects Polanco.

• Newman, too. Really. Enough's enough.

• Man, I can't stand watching Anthony Alford hit, either, albeit for very different reasons. He's got the most all-or-nothing approach I've seen in a while and, when it's nothing, it looks a lot like his 0-for-3, three-K whiff on this night.

Since his recall, he's 4 for 11, and six of his seven outs have been Ks.

At age 27, that's got 4-A written all over it. No thanks.

• For everyone who goes apoplectic with every Shelton lineup card -- occasionally with cause -- take some comfort in this bit he shared before the game: "The one thing I probably won’t change is where the guy that’s third hits. Other than that, everybody else is pretty flexible. Ke'Bryan Hayes, we’ve moved to a couple different spots but the guy hitting third is going to probably hit third. Other than that, just play your game and don’t worry where you hit in the lineup.”

His broader point was about needing to move players all about the lineup, but the respect being shown to Reynolds is more of a harbinger of what's to come, one would think: Hit well, and earn a fixed space.

It's the first I'd heard that from this manager. Maybe a slice of progress, however minuscule.

• For anyone who thinks I'm nuts in suggesting the national baseball media is delusional when it comes to ignoring that Major League Baseball's isolated in not having a salary cap:

My God.

Seriously, they can never even utter the term. It's astounding.

• Apropos of absolutely nothing, only because I snapped the pic below, this is the greatest baseball player -- emphasis on player, not humanitarianism or anything else off the field -- this city's ever known:

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE LINEUPS

Shelton's card:

1. Hoy Park, 2B
2. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
3. Bryan Reynolds, CF
4. Anthony Alford, LF
5. Jacob Stallings, C
6. Gregory Polanco, RF
7. John Nogowski, 1B
8. Kevin Newman, SS
9. Steven Brault, LHP

And for Mike Shildt's Cardinals:

1. Tommy Edman, RF
2. Dylan Carlson, LF
3. Paul Goldschmidt, 1B
4. Nolan Arenado, 3B
5. Yadier Molina, C
6. Harrison Bader, CF
7. Paul DeJong, SS
8. Edmundo Sosa, C
9. J.A. Happ, LHP

THE SCHEDULE

Middle match is Wednesday, 7:05 p.m., Wil Crowe (3-6, 5.47) vs. Adam Wainwright (10-6, 3.48). Alex Stumpf will be back for that, and I'll be bound for Philadelphia and preseason football.

IN THE SYSTEM

• Indianapolis
• Altoona
• Greensboro
• Bradenton

THE CONTENT

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