Kovacevic: Amid just a glorious home opener, maybe, another rebirth

They cheered for Mitch Keller.

And it wasn't just one of those hey-I-know-that-name cheers, the kind that've been all too common throughout PNC Park's couple of mostly miserable decades of existence. The kind where someone's dad dragged them to the stadium, and they'd just politely play along. The kind where, even if the player was a legit performer, no one really seemed to care all that much.

Bear with me here for a minute. I promise all the good stuff will get covered. I was there, too, for all that unfolded in the Pittsburgh Baseball Club's fabulous 142nd home opener, a 13-9 outslugging of the White Sox on this Friday afternoon amid a slight chill and trademark charcoal skies. Andrew McCutchen's triumphant return. Bryan Reynolds' continuing brilliance. A.J. Burnett and Russell Martin dropping by, the bottom three of the order belting 10 hits. It's worth all the words we'll put forth.

But ...

"They cheered for Mitch."

That was me. I spoke that to myself in scarcely a whisper up in the press box. Greg Brown was still in the early portion of his P.A. introductions and, upon getting to the non-starters, there were a lot of those hey-I-know-that-name cheers. A couple that didn't even get that.

Then, 'Starting pitcher, No. 23, Mitch Keller!' was accompanied by an ovation that was louder than anyone's up until the day's starters. And as such, it really stood out.

He noticed, too.

"Yeah, how about that?" he'd say to me in the clubhouse afterward with a broad smile. "How cool was that?"

Cool?

Yeah, I'm sure it was all that and more after he's finally being rewarded for years of perseverance to become a quality pitcher.

But for me, I was genuinely stunned. If only because it meant that a sizable percentage of the standing-room crowd of 39,167 ... you know, watched Mitch pitch. 

Meaning on TV. Meaning in Cincinnati. Meaning in Boston. And they watched him pitch very well. And in hearing his name and seeing his standing among teammates on the third base line preparing to doff his cap, they offered up a little extra as what I could only interpret as a display of in-the-moment appreciation.

Um, Pittsburgh ... do I still know you?

____________________

We're an event town, right? We're still that?

All right, just checking. Because the city of my birth's forever been one where we'll show up for anything that's perceived as an event. Parades. Light-Up Night. The Arts Festival. Even Picklesburgh. I mean, we still don't even know what the hell Picklesburgh is, but we'll fill up the entire Ninth Street Bridge and a full edge of Downtown as if to report there dutifully.

The same, I'll safely say, has applied to the Pirates' home openers forever now. Aside from the recent playoff cameos in 2013-15, where the affection for the team and its players almost rivaled the apprehension for what inevitably waited in the one-and-done round, these have been events, basically, masquerading as baseball games. People would fly or drive in from out of town, a few to keep streaks going of openers attended. But mostly, from everything I've ever gathered, it's been the event thing.

Not this.

Sure, Cutch packed the place. Sure, everyone was in a springy mood anticipating the Cutch intro, Cutch's first at-bat and Cutch's first hit, all of which, blissfully, felt like they occurred almost simultaneously:

Wow.

And that's as it should be. Cutch, his fans here and everyone associated with the team itself have had this coming for a long time. It's to the credit of all concerned that it came off.

With all due respect, though, that's event material. Like A.J. and Russ. Like Michael McKenry calling for a Blackout just a couple days ago and having pretty much everyone in the place sporting black. Like the climactic moment that one-upped all of it in Cutch smacking a single with tears in his eyes. It was, in essence, an event. Off the beaten baseball path by a metric mile. And in Cutch's case, everyone knew it'd be an event as soon as he put pen to paper months ago.

But cheering for Mitch?

That gets stacked into a wholly separate category. Because that comes from diehards. That comes from being invested enough in everything that's been happening on this side of the Allegheny. And I dare say that comes from ... oh, man, I'm really about to step in it but here goes, anyway ... that comes from believing that this team's 5-2 start is something more than a mirage.

Because another cheer that was conspicuously above standard volume was that for Canaan Smith-Njigba, who's fresh off a fine spring in which he fought his way onto the roster.

"Really appreciated that," he'd tell me.

He appreciated. I was astonished.

But maybe I shouldn't be. Maybe I should remember my own words for Neal Huntington more than a decade ago in a conversation about the Pirates' attendance history, in which I shared with him my view that the fan base was a sleeping giant ready to erupt like no other. And a few years later, when A.J. and Russ and all those guys and 40,000-plus rocked Johnny Cueto's world, let's just say I was able to good-naturedly enjoy a told-you-so special.

The Pirates are a vital, in the truest sense of the term, part of Pittsburgh. They're a slice of who we are. They're a civic institution that's been around longer than our symphony, our libraries, most of our universities, even most of our oldest historic structures. Our lineage might as well be the Block House, the Pirates and everything else.

Even when people claim to be apathetic, they aren't. They're angry. Massive chasm between those concepts. Even if/when people want to run Bob Nutting out of town -- I've taken my own fair share of rides on that particular rail -- they'll melt at the mention of Roberto Clemente. Or a memory of something from the past. Or an experience at a game with a loved one, like my own with my late dad taking me to Three Rivers on a night when Nolan Ryan and John Candelaria squared off, since he sought to show me a true pitchers' duel.

It can become latent, this link with the Pirates, but it's never broken.

Remember when Clint Hurdle, at his unforgettable introductory press conference in late 2010, pledged to try to "rebond a city with its baseball team?"

I've either followed or covered a whole lot of this franchise's history. My whole life, really. And I'm here to attest, my friends, that this is very much how those re-bonding phases start out.

____________________

It's the caliber of baseball that leads the way, in one direction or the other, and that's been true around here since, oh, roughly May 2, 1882, a 10-9 victory over the Red Stockings in Cincinnati. Fans won't pay if the players can't play. And conversely, they can't stay away if the players can play.

These Pirates ... look, I'm not inclined to extrapolate a 5-2 start any more than anyone else should be. Over the course of a 162-game summer, even the worst teams will take five of seven occasionally. And when I say even the worst teams, I don't need to remind anyone that we're immediately removed from three full seasons of trash baseball. Heck, Vince Velasquez could be blown to bits Saturday afternoon, and all this happiness, optimism 'n' at will have been forgotten by at least half the readers of this very column.

So, context is critical.

And the context to which I'll pay closest attention in the days, weeks, months to come won't be the outcomes anywhere near as much as the aforementioned caliber of baseball.

Which, I'd imagine, is this current scene feeling different than, say, a fun little run of Ws here or there at any other stage of the Ben Cherington/Derek Shelton era. Because it's one thing to start 5-2, and it's another to rank 10th in Major League Baseball in runs (36), eighth in home runs (10), 12th in OPS (.770), 14th in pitching ERA (4.28), first in saves (5 of 5), ninth in WHIP (1.26), and it's quite another on top of that to do the job fundamentally with sacrifices, smart baserunning, and fielding that's ranged from sound to spectacular.

They're playing good ball.

"We're playing good ball," Wil Crowe could confirm for me after his ElRoy Face-style, three-inning save here. "That's how it felt in Cincinnati, in Boston and now here. That's what's different. Playing as well as we have, having so many different guys contribute, seeing how guys are communicating and supporting each other and getting along in here, that's what's different."

He then referenced this crowd.

"They were awesome. But you know, the guys played incredible. What'd we have, 18 hits?"

It was 19, I noted.

"It's awesome. We played that way, and then they energized us right back."

Think that's something Mitch will feel next time he pitches?

I asked on Twitter, solely of fans who attended the game, about the response they gave him. Had no idea what'd come back. And it was a ton of this:

It was Reynolds who told me more than once in Bradenton, first week of spring training, that something "different" was afoot. And he repeated that in Cincinnati on the eve of the overall opener, telling me, "There's something different here."

So after this game, in the home clubhouse, well after the cameras and microphones had pulled away from Mr. Six RBIs, he was able to have his own told-you-so moment with me. After we made nothing more than eye contact, he grinned and remarked, "Mm-hm. Like that."

JOE SARGENT / GETTY

Bryan Reynolds breaks from the box after his three-run home run in the fourth inning.

• I've got a separate mini-column on Reynolds.

• Cutch's day gets documented in detail by Alex Stumpf. All I'll add here is that it was ... beautiful. Glad to have witnessed it. Couldn't have happened to a better human or, for that matter, a better city.

• All the fuss over A.J. and Russ is another sidebar from Alex.

• And the 7-8-9 attack of Connor Joe, Ji Hwan Bae and Jason Delay is the final piece from Alex.

• Thanks for reading my baseball stuff. And hey, what if this really does stay fun?

Someone ask these individuals what they think:

JOE SARGENT / DKPS

Oneil Cruz, Jason Delay, Wil Crowe, Ke'Bryan Hayes, Ji Hwan Bae and Carlos Santana celebrate victory.

THE ESSENTIALS

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

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE INJURIES

• 7-day concussion list: C Austin Hedges

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

• 60-day injured list: RHP JT Brubaker (elbow), 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. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
6. Jack Suwinski, CF
7. Connor Joe, RF
8. Ji Hwan Bae, 2B
9. Jason Delay, C

And for Pedro Grifol's White Sox:

1. Tim Anderson, SS
2. Luis Robert, CF
3. Andrew Vaughn, 1B
4. Yoan Moncada, 3B
5. Jake Burger, DH
6. Yasmani Grandal, C
7. Elvis Andrus, 2B
8. Romy Gonzalez, LF
9. Oscar Colás, RF

THE SCHEDULE

Two more against the White Sox here this weekend, with Vince Velasquez facing Mike Clevinger in the Saturday game, 6:35 p.m. Alex and Corey Crisan will have it.

THE MULTIMEDIA

THE CONTENT

Visit our team page for everything.