Kovacevic: Oviedo's odd day, on and off mound, reminds of No. 1 need

PHILADELPHIA -- For all that's rolled right for these Pirates over the past 60-plus games, it sure shouldn't go ignored that their rotation's been made of the following over most of that time:

1. Mitch Keller
2. Johan Oviedo
3. TBD
4. TBD
5. TBD

And that alone, my friends, can bury the 2024 season before it ever begins. 

Because, regardless of what anyone thinks of Major League Baseball's modern trend toward 'openers' and 'bulk guys' and 'bullpen days,' in general, the next team that contends over a full summer with a two-man rotation will make history. And that'd go double if the second man in that rotation's a distant second. Presuming he's second at all.

Man, where to even start with Oviedo?

Let's try this: His teammates handed him a five-run lead over the first three innings Wednesday night at Citizens Bank Bark, he handed four of them right back in the fourth, his teammates handed him another run in the fifth, and he handed two more right back in the bottom half. That tie eventually gave way to Bryce Harper's easily forecast solo home run in the seventh off Jose Hernandez, and the Phillies prevailed, 7-6.

That's bad enough. Oviedo's five-inning line counted six runs, seven hits, two walks and a terribly untimely hit batsman.

But maybe more ominous, he came across as amply uncomfortable afterward, blaming his performance on being too nice ... and in the starkest possible terms while at the same time not being specific at all.

"I have to take responsibility. There's gotta be more control of the situation," he began. “All of the situations. That’s including everything. Just gotta control everything more.”

Control what, exactly?

“Everything around. Everything. I gotta be more selfish and … jealous about my job. So I gotta be more mean, even if it means that it’s with people that are next to me.”

And how did it feel to join Keller as the rotation's only wire-to-wire contributors and thus, becoming the team's first duo to both achieve baseball's still-respected 32-start plateau since Tom Gorzelanny and Ian Snell back in 2007? 

“Feel great. Thankfully, we ended season healthy," Oviedo would say, referring to Keller. "That's one of the goals. But yeah, that was never the result I was looking for. I'm just looking forward for next year.”

OK, I bit. I brought up a couple of his better showings this season, reminded him that he seemed to operate with an edge in those games, and asked, simply, if he pitches better when he's mad:

"Most of the time," was all he'd initially say.

Why, I asked, is that?

"I don’t care about anyone’s feelings, pretty much. So, I gotta find a way to be more mad and selfish and mean."

I kept going, asking if that approach helps his focus or commitment to a given pitch.

"Most of the time. Just trying to not think about what anybody’s thinking around me. Trying to not think about whatever. Just ... pretend that I'm not nice ... things go better. Probably next year I’m gonna be a little bit more … douchebag.”

His term, not mine.

“I feel I gotta be more … mean — with anything around," came his final words. "Sometimes you’re a little bit flexible. In baseball you’re in ... especially in my gameday as a starter, you don’t bring feelings out. You just go for it.”

Look, I like the kid. I've had a chance to get to know him a little more than the norm this summer. He's right that he'd have to "pretend" that he's not nice because he truly is. Super-nice. Outgoing. Gregarious, even. He's still young at 25, but he's mature and intelligent enough to process both the negatives and the positives of what's happened in his first full season as a big-league starter, and he's plenty ambitious enough -- witness his backstory in his family's trials to leave Cuba -- to push through it.

The ice-cold bottom line remains that he'd go 9-15 with a 4.31 ERA this season, striking out 158, walking 83, allowing opponents to bat .237 and ... yeah, a lot of back and forth. Some good, some bad. 

Better wording: Some awesome, some awful. Of his 32 starts, he allowed one or zero runs 15 times. That's the highest such number since Francisco Liriano's 15 in 2013 and, for more than that, one has to claw all the way back through the books to John Candelaria's 16 in 1977.

Quite literally, half the time, Oviedo's a star. And in the other half, he's this:

Those pitches, as long as we're all being stark, were excrement. They deserved the ruthless treatment they received.

I asked Shelton, who met with reporters before the Oviedo interview, for his broader thoughts on the young man's year.

“Well, I think what he’s shown me is that he’s durable," Shelton replied. "I think the thing we have to continue to focus on is just consistency, the consistency of the stuff, the consistency of the approach.”

As an example, he cited a sequence in the fourth inning in which Oviedo lost Jake Cave to a walk after 95-mph heat and a nose-diving slider brought two quick strikes, then hit Johan Rojas after a pinpoint first-pitch slider for a called strike. Led right into Garrett Stubbs' three-run blast.

“Inconsistent," Shelton would say. "We walk a guy after going to 0-2. We hit a guy. We have to execute pitches better than that.”

There's work to do, with most of that falling onto Ben Cherington's desk this winter.

As I see it, the payroll needs to top $100 million for the first time in nearly a decade. It's been there before, it's currently at $73,280,276 in actual dollars projected to be spent by the season finale Sunday, and it's not some excessive ask to hike it back up to nine figures for a season that Cherington and others now publicly acknowledge will have nothing less than playoff contention as a goal.

As I further see it, either all eight of the everyday players or options to be those everyday players are already in place except first base. Which just might be addressed, in part, by a return of Carlos Santana, who wouldn't require longer than a one-year term nor more than a few million to sign.

But again, as I also see it, none of that'd mean a whit without starting pitching. And even if Paul Skenes were to erupt onto the scene immediately upon arrival -- don't expect that until June, by the way, for factors both baseball-based and financial -- that'd still leave Oviedo and a ton of TBDs in the current circumstance.

Luis Ortiz?

He's less predictable than Oviedo, he's been knocked internally for not applying himself enough, and let's just say that's why he was the Thursday TBD for this very series before finding out after this game that he'll pitch next. He isn't trusted yet.

Roansy Contreras?

He's lost his fastball under Oscar Marin, he's not getting the guidance he needs from Marin or anyone on the inside, and one of baseball's most scintillating pitching prospects is suddenly a 23-year-old mystery. With no solution in sight.

Quinn Priester?

Not without a fastball, man. Sorry.

Andre Jackson? Bailey Falter? Osvaldo Bido?

Come on.

JT Brubaker? Vince Velasquez? Mike Burrows? Or any else among the injured?

Here's hoping, for their sake. But hope's not a plan, and only Max Kranick's aligned from a recovery standpoint.

It'll take money more than any meanness.

GETTY

Connor Joe dives back to second base after his double in the third inning Wednesday night in Philadelphia.

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THE INJURIES

• 60-day injured list: SS Oneil Cruz (ankle), RHP JT Brubaker (elbow), LHP Jarlin Garcia (elbow), INF Tucupita Marcano (knee), LHP Angel Perdomo (elbow), RHP Vince Velasquez (elbow), DH/OF Andrew McCutchen (Achilles)

THE LINEUPS

Shelton's card:

1. Jared Triolo, 1B
2. Bryan Reynolds, LF
3. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
4. Connor Joe, RF
5. Henry Davis, DH
6. Jack Suwinski, CF
7. Liover Peguero, SS
8. Endy Rodriguez, C
9. Nick Gonzales, 2B

And for Rob Thomson's Phillies:

1. Bryson Stott, 2B
2. Edmundo Sosa, SS
3. Bryce Harper, 1B
4. Brandon Marsh, DH
5. Cristian Pache, RF
6. Jake Cave, LF
7. Johan Rojas, CF
8. Rodolfo Castro, 3B
9. Garrett Stubbs, C

THE SCHEDULE

The calendar's final road game Thursday pits Ortiz (4-5, 4.96) against righty Zack Wheeler (13-6, 3.64). First pitch 6:05 p.m. That'll be my last game of 2023, as I'll fly to Houston for football for the weekend.

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