It's seldom the symptoms. It's almost always the causes.
In turn, it's not the Pirates striking out 13 times on this Friday night at PNC Park. It's not the third base coach putting up the most absurd stop sign of the summer. It's not a butchered bouncer to shortstop. It's not the franchise's highest-paid player buzz-killing a rally. It's not the franchise's highest-ranked prospect hacking at the first offering following a four-pitch walk.
And be damned sure it's not OK anymore to analyze all this losing -- in this case 2-1 to the Phillies -- in isolation.
The people running this team, on and off the field, don't deserve it. Not anymore. Not in Year 4.
Because crap like this keeps occurring ...
... with no semblance of accountability.
That's a Ji-Man Choi RBI double in the fourth inning. Should've been a two-run double. But Mike Rabelo, the third base coach, somehow was the only one among 34,000-plus packed into the place who didn't see that Andrew McCutchen could've scored easily and, instead, pumped the brakes on Cutch after he'd already turned the corner.
And was halfway down the baseline before the relay had reached the first baseman.
After Nick Castellanos took his sweet time trotting to the ball in the corner.
After Castellanos lollipopped the throw to Bryce Harper.
After Harper, whose arm's all but shot, caught it in the outfield grass.
My goodness. Cutch could've paused on those final 90 feet to perform a handstand and still touched home plate without a slide.
As fate would have it, as if this were all being penned by the baseball gods as penance, with one out already in the books, Henry Davis would pop out, Endy Rodriguez would line out, Cutch wouldn't budge from the bag, and the finger-wagging score stayed the same for the rest of the evening.
There's no justification for the stop sign. None. Least of all in the broader context of an offense that's been outright pathetic from the moment the month of April elapsed.
And yet, when I asked Derek Shelton his view of Rabelo's call:
"No," he began. "I mean, no problem with that. Rabs is a good third base coach. I think anytime that you get a stop or you get a send that doesn't go the way you want, then everybody turns it around. I mean, he had a send the other day in San Diego. That was probably the best we've had in four years, and no one talks about it. So it comes into play when people feel that, you know, he should have done one or the other. If he sends him and Cutch gets thrown out, everybody's like, 'Why did you send him?' We still had second and third with one out. We had a couple of opportunities, and we did not capitalize."
No. Respectfully, no.
Shelton's lived a baseball life. He'll know more about the game than any reporter ever could.
But no. Rabelo blew that. Big-time. He either assessed every single thing about the scene incorrectly or, worse, he didn't bother assessing it at all. I've interviewed countless third base coaches over the years, including Jeff Cox, the most effective I've covered. He'd rattle off a dozen scenarios -- just for fun -- for every ball that landed anywhere in the outfield, and he'd come equipped with an insane level of detail that'd encompass each opposing outfielder’s strengths and weaknesses. He probably the names of all their next of kin, too.
Think that happened here? Or that Shelton was just sticking up for his guy?
That sequence, my friends, is the symptom. One of a centillion, it seems, that we've witnessed since 20-8 became 45-58, since first place became last place, since almost everything about this operation slid right back into the same slotting of this management team's first three years.
But again, it's the causes that count. And the causes, I'm plenty comfortable saying after all this time, are that these Pirates can't acquire talent, can't develop the talent that does get acquired and, once the precious few arrive on the North Shore, can't instruct the talent. Or steer the talent when stuff inevitably goes astray. Or sustain the occasional success the talent might enjoy.
And I'm here to tell you, having covered two prior administrations with similarly spectacular shortcomings, that's a hell of a problem.
Way darker than anything that's dissected on any day-by-day basis.
Want to see the prism through which I've watched all this since early May?
Check this out:
That's Alika Williams. He's 24. He's been up from Class AAA Indianapolis for all of three games, but he's already shown some of the slickest shortstopping seen in these parts in far too long. Really sound, too. Makes the routine plays routinely. And, for whatever this is worth, he strikes me as a terrific kid based on a quality talk he and I had after this game.
Now, try to act surprised when I remind that he was raised in the Rays' extraordinary feeder system before coming here in May as part of the Robert Stephenson trade.
That's my prism.
And so's this:
That's Liover Peguero. He's 22. He's freshly up from Indy, as well. That's his 14th error, total, between here and the minors. For his professional career, he's committed 86 errors over 332 games. I'll spare the math: That's one every four games.
Think that's unfair? Too selective a comparison? Too small a sample size?
Fine, but then I'd have to waste everyone's time by revisiting Bryan Reynolds bouncing into a 4-3 double play to end the eighth after he'd stepped into the box with the opportunity to make a bona fide $106 million difference, as opposed to being just another batter disintegrating under Andy Haines. And then, I'd have to describe Davis working a two-out, four-pitch walk in the ninth, only to have Rodriguez immediately hack at this borderline Craig Kimbrel fastball ...
MLB.com
... to pop into foul territory and turn out the lights.
I asked Shelton if he or anyone in the dugout ever tells a young player like Rodriguez to maybe take a look at a couple pitches in that situation.
"Naw, I mean, you're talking about a guy who's going to the Hall of Fame," Shelton replied, referring obviously to Kimbrel. "You get a fastball to hit, you've got to take a swing at it."
Be sure no one spoke a syllable about this to Rodriguez.
Consider the causes.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Team feed
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
• Scoreboard
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE INJURIES
• 10-day injured list: 2B Ji Hwan Bae (ankle), 3B Ke'Bryan Hayes (lower back)
• 60-day injured list: SS Oneil Cruz (ankle), RHP JT Brubaker (elbow), LHP Jarlin Garcia (elbow), RHP Max Kranick (elbow), RHP Vince Velasquez (elbow)
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
1. Jack Suwinski, CF
2. Bryan Reynolds, LF
3. Andrew McCutchen, DH
4. Ji-Man Choi, 1B
5. Henry Davis, RF
6. Endy Rodríguez, C
7. Jared Triolo, 3B
8. Nick Gonzales, 2B
9. Alika Wililams, SS
And for Rob Thomson's Phillies:
1. Kyle Schwarber, DH
2. Trea Turner, SS
3. Bryce Harper, 1B
4. Nick Castellanos, RF
5. Bryson Stott, 2B
6. J.T. Realmuto, C
7. Alec Bohm, 3B
8. Brandon Marsh, CF
9. Jake Cave, LF
THE SCHEDULE
Middle match of the series pits Quinn Priester (1-1, 9.28) against righty Aaron Nola (9-6, 4.25). First pitch 7:05 p.m. Alex Stumpf will be here, and I'll be back for the finale Sunday.
THE ODDS
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THE CONTENT
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