Ortiz gets first win while only showing some of his upside

There's a chance that Monday will be the last time Luis Ortiz pitches at PNC Park for awhile. The Pirates' top pitching prospect was recalled earlier this month to take the place of Vince Velasquez while he was on the injured list, and Velasquez already has one rehab start under his belt with no decision yet made if he will need another.

So if this is the last time Ortiz is going to pitch in the majors for a bit, he is going to leave people wanting more. Facing the top scoring offense in baseball in the Rangers, Ortiz held them to just two runs and five hits over 7 2/3 innings and picked up his first big-league win in a 6-4 Pirates victory.

"Very happy. Full of emotions," Ortiz said through interpreter Stephen Morales. "Thanks to the guys that gave their best out their to help me win this game."

The first two major-league starts for the 24-year-old flamethrower did not go as planned allowing nine runs in total over just eight innings with more walks (5) than strikeouts (4). He made a great first impression in the majors last year during his September call up, where he showed he was raw but had great stuff and wasn't afraid to throw it for strikes. Ortiz's start Monday more closely resembled the Ortiz Pirate fans got a taste of last year.

"He attacked the zone," Derek Shelton answered on what the biggest difference was between Monday and his first two starts. "He was in attack mode the whole time. You’re looking at the best offense in baseball there. He stayed in attack mode. It shows the quality of his stuff because they were really aggressive. Through the first 4-5 innings, there weren’t a lot of balls put on the barrel."

Ortiz needed just 67 pitches to get through the first seven innings before allowing a pair of walks and his second run of the night in the eighth, with all four of his batters faced drawing a full count. Those would be the only walks he allowed on the night, finishing with the longest start by a Pirate rookie since Trevor Williams on Aug. 23, 2017.

"That was awesome," Ke'Bryan Hayes said. "I think even despite him not having his best stuff, kind of falling behind a little bit at times, him and Hedgy [Austin Hedges], they were able to get weak contact with his fastball, which was huge."

Wait, that wasn't even the best Ortiz can offer? And he still did that against the top offense in the game? Amazingly, it's quite possible. 

Because if there is a knock on Ortiz's game right now, it's that despite throwing 98 mph, Ortiz doesn't get a lot of whiffs or strikeouts. He had just four punchouts on the night and just two whiffs on his four-seamer.

There's plenty of confidence within the organization that those whiffs and strikeouts will eventually come, and a four-pitch fifth inning shows that he can be efficient as well. But this isn't the ceiling for what Ortiz can be.

"You can really relate it to Mitch [Keller] where Mitch, for a while, he wasn’t really getting the strikeouts," Hedges explained. "He had the good stuff and he’s getting a lot of weak contact and he’s learned how to strike guys out really at the plate, really as of late. I think that’s the next development is learning how to use that good stuff that gets weak contact and knowing how to put guys away."

The way Ortiz was able to get those whiffs was with his offspeed and breaking stuff. The changeup in particular has been a project this year, starting in the offseason and carrying to his work in Class AAA Indianapolis.

Corey Seager can attest that even if it's still developing, that changeup can be hard to hit:

"I’ve been working on my changeup and it’s finally getting where it needs to be," Ortiz said. "I’ll just continue to throw it, and that way, we’ll get the results we’re looking for."

Then there's the slider, which he threw consistently in the zone for most of the night, something he didn't do his first two starts this year:

Yeah, not bad for someone who didn't have his best stuff, apparently. It's why if Ortiz is optioned back to the minors before his next start, that stint in the minors will likely not be all that long.

Because if he can shut down the No. 1 offense, what is he going to do against Class AAA?

"I would take it against any team," Shelton said. "It really doesn’t matter. But with where their hitters are at and what they’ve done and the amount of runs they score, yeah, it was extremely impressive."

MORE FROM THE GAME

• After scrapping together just one run against Rangers starter Dane Dunning, Carlos Santana delivered a two out base hit in the seventh where Bryan Reynolds was beaten on the throw home, but he snuck in ahead of Jonah Heim's tag because he kept his foot down to touch the plate. Had he gone in foot up, the original call likely wouldn't have been overturned and he would have been out.

 "A lot of guys slide and keep their foot up," Shelton said. "He slid and kept his foot down. Then we’re able to get the challenge and do that. It was really encouraging that we continued to grind through at-bats regardless of the number of outs."

Two batters later, Tucupita Marcano delivered the big hit of the night, a grand slam to dead center. Chris has more on the home run in the Freeze Frame.

• One more from the Pitching Ninja on Colin Holderman's wicker sinker:

"I have to try to try to one-up Mitch, Bob [Robert Stephenson]," Holderman joked to me. "They're all throwing super hard."

• Andrew McCutchen is closing in on 2,000 career hits (two hits Monday brought him up to 1,986), and in the first inning Monday, he lined a knock to right field for his 1,500th as a Pirate, becoming the 12th player in franchise history to do so.

After some joking, he did a postgame interview about the milestone with a small group of reporters postgame, where he brushed off the concept of the big milestone round numbers. I followed up by asking if baseball puts a little too much emphasis on those round numbers.

"Yeah, they do," McCutchen said. "It looks nice on the board and all, but I'm not trying to be at 1,500 very long. Go ahead, change that tomorrow."

• Factoid of the game: At 23 years, 248 days, Marcano is the youngest Pirate to hit a grand slam since Pedro Alvarez (23 years, 164 days) on July 20, 2010.

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THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE INJURIES

• 15-day injured list: RHP Vince Velasquez (elbow)

• 60-day injured list: 1B Ji-Man Choi (Achilles), RHP Wil Crowe (shoulder), RHP JT Brubaker (elbow), SS Oneil Cruz (ankle), LHP Jarlin Garcia (elbow), RHP Max Kranick (elbow)

THE LINEUPS

Shelton's card:

1. Andrew McCutchen, DH
2. Bryan Reynolds, LF
3. Jack Suwinski, CF
4. Carlos Santana, 1B
5. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
6. Tucupita Marcano, SS
7. Connor Joe, RF
8. Ji Hwan Bae, 2B
9. Austin Hedges, C

And for Bruce Bochy's Rangers:

1. Marcus Semien, 2B
2. Kyle Seager, SS
3. Nathaniel Lowe, 1B
4. Adolis Garcia, RF
5. Josh Jung, 3B
6. Jonah Heim, C
7. Robbie Grossman, LF
8. Josh Smith, DH
9. Leody Taveras, CC

THE SCHEDULE

Game two is set for 6:35 p.m. Tuesday. Rich Hill (4-3, 3.80) will try to build off his last start against the Tigers against Nathan Eovaldi (5-2, 2.83). I'll be flying solo for this one.

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