Kovacevic: For these Pirates, the big will have to go through the small

CINCINNATI -- A burst won't do it, no matter how big, how beautiful.

An Oneil Cruz home run, even if it's boomed into orbit at a billion miles an hour, even if it's boomeranging right back on an elite pitching talent, even if the bleeping ball wears a bleeping cape on the way out ... that won't do it.

Oh, I'll acknowledge it's a blast to witness ...

... and be very sure, as well, that Cruz's solo shot in the third inning resonated well beyond any advanced analytics in allowing the Pirates to push past both the Reds, 5-4, and their prodigy starter, Hunter Greene, in the Pittsburgh Baseball Club's 142nd season opener on this sunny Thursday afternoon at Great American Ball Park. Heck, in that instant alone, Greene's script flipped from fanning everyone in sight to handing the ball to his manager the very next inning.

"Big difference," Andrew McCutchen would tell me afterward. "A really big difference."

No doubt. But it was the little that made the big possible. And that, more than anything, left the biggest impression with me.

Does the Cruz of 2022, riveting a rookie as he was, run up a full count on six pitches before that savage swing?

"No," the kid replied when I raised that.

Does the Cruz of 2022 recognize that Greene had fallen prey to an awfully predictable pattern?

"No," he replied again. "Everything is different now."

By that, he meant the team's composition, the offseason accumulation of veterans and, in turn, all the help he got on the way to the box. Which was explained thusly by Cutch: "We saw what Greene was doing. He was falling into a cadence. He was going elevated heat with two strikes. He tried to do that to Cruz ... and Cruz said no."

Little stuff becoming big stuff.

Guess who was the first recipient of a knowing grin in the on-deck circle:

I'm about to put this more bluntly: No franchise goes from 100 losses to glory. This one won't be an exception: With due respect to the legit young players at hand, the equally legit experience that's been added and other fun elements in play, this shouldn't reasonably be seen by anyone as the on-ramp to anything more than ... the next on-ramp, I guess.

But if there's a lack of emphasis on winning, a lack of fundamentals, a lack of the player-level camaraderie and/or accountability to make those first two count, as was painfully the case throughout 2021 and 2022, then all the occasional bursts don't amount to a barrel of beans. Because in that context, Cruz still makes the Statcast devotees salivate, still makes the MLB Network live cut-ins ... and the Pirates still stink.

I've got more. And less:

Ji Hwan Bae, my spring pick to click, showed up in a big -- I mean small -- way and went 2 for 3 with a walk, two steals and two runs, including the winner above in the eighth inning in which he trotted home on Cruz's sac fly to put the Pirates ahead for good, 5-4.

Yawn, right?

Well, think again about all that had to go right, beginning with Bae getting on base almost every time up, on this occasion by working a four-pitch walk, then stealing second.

“My initial thought was getting on base first, no matter what," Bae would recall through team interpreter Daniel Park. "Then, when I got on base, I just kind of trusted my teammates at home plate when they were at-bat.”

It was justified immediately. Austin Hedges, hardly known for his bat, put down a pristine bunt to push Bae to third.

"I take a lot of pride in my bunting. Always have," Hedges would tell me. "I know what my job is there."

Cruz knew his, too. And rather than bore anyone with a bunch of words about an art form that Bill Madlock once famously described as the easiest assignment any hitter has, I'll instead illustrate Cruz's intention through a solitary still photo:

GETTY

Oneil Cruz hits a sacrifice fly to left field in the eighth inning Thursday in Cincinnati.

Any questions?

Ball made it to the track in left. Bae could've crawled the final 90 feet.

And yeah, I still asked Cruz if he took something off that, mostly to hear how Mr. Exit Velocity might react.

"I was shortening my swing," he'd confirm. "I needed to make contact, no matter what, to get that run."

Derek Shelton, the old hitting coach, observed this: “As big as he is, we could see the commitment to just shortening up and putting the ball in play. That’s hard to do for a guy who’s 6-foot-7 with really long arms. That was really impressive.”

Wait, one more:

Is there a prettier play in baseball than the strike-'em-out-throw-'em out?

This one wouldn't have been that, obviously, if not for Colin Holderman's 99-mph blazer by Will Benson, nor Hedges' missile to Cruz to catch Stuart Fairchild trying to steal. But it also wouldn't have met that criteria if not for Cruz's ferocious swipe tag.

"Just perfect," Hedges would tell me. "No, really, there's nothing this guy can't do."

Well, hang on. Because a year ago, this same kid couldn't do that. His tags were clumsy, often all over creation.

I asked Cruz if that'd been an area of emphasis this spring, maybe with Mendy Lopez, the new infield instructor. I even motioned in Lopez's direction across the clubhouse.

"No," Cruz replied without hesitation. "Winter ball. I worked hard on that. Tags. Very important."

It's one game of 162, as I share after these things every year. The win, the loss, the big, the little ... all just 1/162 of what'll ultimately be measured.

But hey, if we're all comfortable on this occasion talking about little turning into big, I felt compelled to bring it up with Shelton, who'd been disappointed enough by some fundamentals in Florida early in spring training that he broke from his standard stance and -- out of public view -- tore into more than a few of the guilty parties:

"We played really well," he'd reply when I asked to what degree a performance like this was a manager's delight. "We talked at the end of the spring and even yesterday that we did not play well fundamentally. But today, we did. We threw the ball to the right bases. We made the right reads. Even the one there at the end on the ball India hit ..."

This was a reference to Jonathan India's one-out double off David Bednar in the Cincinnati ninth that put the tying run in scoring position, a situation that could've been worse if Bryan Reynolds had gotten excessively ambitious in left field and tried to cut down India at second. He instead took the safe route to Ke'Bryan Hayes at third.

India stayed stuck on second for the 27th out.

"Bryan knows, ‘OK, I may have a chance to hit instead of throwing the ball to third base.’ It's little things like that," Shelton would continue. "Overall, I'm really pleased because there was a lot of team stuff that happened today. It wasn’t one guy who did it. We kind of did it up and down, and with our pitching, too."

Hedges' viewpoint on this stood out for me:

That's quite the character, huh?

"It's winning baseball, man," he'd begin. "It's why I love playing the game. I love playing winning baseball. Winning, fundamental baseball. Doing the little things. The sac flies. Moving guys over. Pitching to situations. Double plays. All the walks we worked. ... This was a full Pittsburgh Pirates team win."

I managed to keep my eyebrows down. He's new here. He can't have known how that sounded.

"I think if we do this in Game 1, it's gonna set us up for the rest of the year. Because this is the blueprint. Look at it. That works. Let's do that again now."

Saturday will mark the season's 2/162 milepost.

Anyone else ready to irrationally fast-forward and find out how it all unfolds?

DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS

National anthem before Pirates vs. Reds on opening day, Thursday in Cincinnati.

• Cutch's first day back in black and gold, as told to me by the man himself after the game. Can't recommend this strongly enough.

• The latest on the Reynolds mess, by Alex Stumpf. I'm steering clear of the subject myself until I'm certain it's played out. I don't believe it has.

• A Freeze Frame on the Cruz home run, also by Alex.

• The tale of Rob Zastryzny, the 31-year-old journeyman who was sure he'd get cut Wednesday, then got the W on this day, also by Alex.

• Mitch Keller's starting line -- four runs, six hits, 4 2/3 innings -- won't floor anyone, but the aggressive approach he adopted throughout, even once he ran low on steam in the fifth the way most pitchers do in a season's opening week, will serve him very well in 2023. This was a plus, I thought, in almost every way.

"Obviously, the numbers aren't what I want them to be," he'd say. "I didn't feel the best out there. Just one of those days, off day. I think once we got out of the first we started working a little bit better in the zone. I felt like I was attacking well. Just lost a few pitches here and there."

He'll be fine.

• Couldn't care less if Fairchild was safe or out on that steal attempt. Stuart Scheurwater, the second-base ump, called him out. From there, it's incumbent on the review process to uncover definitive evidence that the call was wrong. The reviewers don't start from scratch. They start from that as the default setting. They didn't see definitive -- neither did I -- and that was that.

• All hail pitch clock: In a game that saw 24 strikeouts and 15 walks, plus the home team batting in the bottom of the ninth, the time of game was a relatively brisk 3:03. Keller and Greene each was charged with one pitch-clock violation, and scientists worldwide were able to verify that the Earth remain on its axis. 

I am so happy about this that my face hurts from all the smiling.

• Say what one will about these Reds but ... no, really, just go right ahead and say what one will. It'll be brutal in this corner of Ohio all summer.

• Thanks for reading my baseball stuff. Headed back home for more stretch-drive hockey.

• Oh, and before I go, thanks again to the Reds for this thoroughly unexpected surprise at the space next to mine:

THE ESSENTIALS

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

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE INJURIES

• 15-day injured list: RHP JT Brubaker (elbow), RHP Robert Stephenson (elbow)

• 60-day injured list: LHP Jarlin Garcia (elbow)

THE LINEUPS

Shelton's card:

1. Oneil Cruz, SS
2. Bryan Reynolds, LF
3. Andrew McCutchen, DH
4. Carlos Santana, 1B
5. Canaan Smith-Njigba, RF
6. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
7. Jack Suwinski, CF
8. Ji Hwan Bae, 2B
9. Austin Hedges, C

And for David Bell's Reds:

1. Jonathan India, 2B
2. TJ Friedl, CF
3. Jake Fraley, DH
4. Tyler Stephenson, C
5. Jason Vosler, 1B
6. Wil Myers, RF
7. Spencer Steer, 3B
8. Will Benson, LF
9. Jose Barrero, SS

THE SCHEDULE

Two more against the Reds here this weekend, with Rich Hill facing fellow lefty Nick Lodolo in the next game Saturday, 4:10 p.m. Alex will have it.

THE MULTIMEDIA

THE CONTENT

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