'It's not up to me:' Wilson's shakiness puts rotation spot in jeopardy

The decision made more sense when it was revealed that Dillon Peters would start Wednesday rather than Tuesday night at PNC Park.

Still, after two straight strong outings coming out in relief as the hybrid pitcher, Bryse Wilson's return to being a formal starter did not go well, allowing six runs over just 2 2/3 innings in an 11-1 Pirates loss to the Dodgers.

"We've gone back and forth with different things, and we said we'd be flexible with how we do it," Derek Shelton said on the decision to start Wilson again. "We may do that again going forward, give him another start. His command was not where we needed it to be."

Wilson and Peters had been the duo for Wilson's last two games, with Peters serving as the opener. The righty-lefty ying and yang worked, as Peters has been one of the Pirates' best pitchers this season and Wilson's different stuff and pitch paths played differently.

While the small sample size needs to be taken into account, in 14 innings as a starter this season, Wilson has allowed 14 earned runs. In 7 2/3 innings as a reliever, he has not allowed an earned run.

After those two hybrid outings, Wilson talked about how he pitched with a reliever mentality, going back to his experience pitching out of that role with the Braves. 

"I try to bring the exact same mindset. I just want to go after their hitters, fill up the zone, stay in the zone, not walk any guys. I feel like I was able to do that tonight. Like I said, a couple miss-executed pitches were sitting there. They're going to hit good pitches more than other teams."

Looking at where the Dodgers did their damage, Wilson did a good job pitching east to west and catching both sides of the plate, but failed to consistently hit the corners, leaving too many pitches at the right height for hitters.

Here is where the eight hits the Dodgers had against him were located:

"It looked like he kind of ran away from his fastball and was just kind of spraying it up on both sides," Shelton said.

And against that Dodgers lineup, mistakes like that get amplified.

After his shaky performance as a starter this season, Wilson could go back to being the second hybrid guy or the bullpen in general, considering the other hybrid options the organization has. Duane Underwood Jr. is a candidate once he completes his rehab. Max Kranick is on the major-league team now and had already started to pitch out of that role in Class AAA Indianapolis. There are a couple other options in Indianapolis, not to mention Roansy Contreras is being stretched out as a starter.

For now, though, Wilson says he doesn't know what his future holds when it comes to starting.

"It's not up to me," he said.

MORE FROM THE GAME

• Beau Sulser has been a pleasant surprise out of the Pirates bullpen, and the rookie gave the Pirates three scoreless frames in relief. That changed when he had to go through the Dodgers' order a second time in the seventh, resulting in four insurance runs coming home.

"I'm more than stating the obvious here, but that's a pretty good lineup," Shelton said. "And when you see a guy for the first time, they made an adjustment. I thought early on, his breaking ball was good. He had them off-balance, and then I think a little bit of fatigue set in and the ball started to get up. If you get the ball up against this lineup, we saw the results of what happened."

• The Pirates' best chance at offense came in the first after a Ben Gamel leadoff walk and Bryan Reynolds followed with a hustle double. Ke'Bryan Hayes' lifted a shallow fly ball to right, but it wasn't deep enough to score Gamel, who was thrown out by Mookie Betts:

"I think we got a little too aggressive there," Shelton said. "We tried to get a little too aggressive, especially with no outs."

The Pirates would collect just four hits on the day, with their lone tally coming home on a Yoshi Tsutsugo ground out.

• Jake Marisnick was placed on the 10-day injured list with a left thumb injury that he sustained Monday. More details will be made available Wednesday. Kranick is taking his spot on the roster.

• The real baseball story in western Pennsylvania Tuesday was about 100 miles away on US 22 East. Last year's No. 1 overall draft pick Henry Davis made his debut with Class AA Altoona, and made sure it was memorable:

I'll have more on this later.

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
• Scoreboard

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE INJURIES

• 10-day injured list: SS Kevin Newman (groin), RHP Duane Underwood Jr. (hamstring), C Roberto Perez (hamstring); Underwood had his rehab transferred to Class AA Altoona, where he tossed a scoreless inning

• 60-day injured list: OF Greg Allen (hamstring), RHP Blake Cederlind (UCL), RHP Nick Mears (elbow surgery)

THE LINEUPS

Shelton's card:

1. Ben Gamel, LF
2. Bryan Reynolds, CF
3. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 2B
4. Daniel Vogelbach, DH
5. Yoshi Tsutsugo, 1B
6. Diego Castillo, SS
7. Jack Suwinski, RF
8. Michael Perez, C
9. Cole Tucker, 2B

And for Dave Roberts' Dodgers:

1. Mookie Betts, RF
2. Freddie Freeman, 1B
3. Trea Turner, SS
4. Max Muncy, 2B
5. Justin Turner, 3B
6. Cody Bellinger, CF
7. Edwin Ríos, DH
8. Gavin Lux, LF
9. Austin Barnes, C

THE SCHEDULE

The Pirates and Dodgers will play the rubber match of their series Wednesday at 12:35 p.m.. Peters (3-1, 2.16) will take the bump for the home team. The Dodgers will counter with their No. 5 prospect, Ryan Pepiot, who is making his major-league debut.

THE CONTENT

Visit our team page for everything.