Try to take the emotion out of it.
I mean, good luck, but try.
Because be certain that not everyone's capable of such a thing:
https://t.co/UCOh6l2Bj3 pic.twitter.com/7XFFTAHvNy
— Platinum Ke’Bryan (@PlatinumKey13) April 21, 2024
sigh pic.twitter.com/LJCnguUy0S
— Platinum Ke’Bryan (@PlatinumKey13) April 21, 2024
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) April 22, 2024
Give the field-level Pirates credit for one thing, and one thing alone: They care. They aren't cold about their losing streak that's now at six after that 6-1 slopfest against the Red Sox yesterday at PNC Park. They aren't casting off that they've been outscored, 36-9, in that span, lowlighted by a pathetic passivity at the plate that's been par for the course through Andy Haines' tenure as hitting coach.
The players want to get better. They believe they can be better, as they were when opening this season 9-2, as opposed to now collapsing back to 11-11.
"I don't feel like we're too far off, and I don't feel like we're panicking," Connor Joe, one of the precious few regulars in the lineup who still swings the bat as if that's part of the plan, would say after this. "The confidence and belief in ourselves and each other, that's staying consistent and true, which is a good sign for us."
Maybe. As Clint Hurdle used to muse, "If it's in there, it's in there." It's emerged at times.
But if there's one statement from Derek Shelton after this game that resonated most with me, it was this, related to evaluating the team's embarrassing fundamental showing on this day, both in the field and on the basepaths: "You don't isolate it to one game."
No. You don't. Not with anything when it comes to this beautiful game. Ever.
My friends, this is Year 5 for this front office, with Ben Cherington heading up baseball ops.
Year.
Freaking.
Five.
It's not just that the team isn't improving anywhere near enough within such an expansive timeframe and, in fact, that's not what's been most troubling. It's that the individuals don't improve ... my God, almost at all. No matter their pedigree. No matter their potential. They either stagnate or regress, but for the rarest cases such as Mitch Keller (who had several setbacks along the way), David Bednar (who was brought up entirely through the San Diego system) and Ke'Bryan Hayes (who received his tutelage from Class AA Altoona hitting coach Jon Nunnally, leading to Cherington eventually firing Nunnally at season's end).
If there's anyone else, I'm all ears. I'll even stop typing for a minute and wait.
(Taps fingers next to mouse a few times.)
So, nobody?
And would anyone dare attempt to argue that the raw talent hasn't been there? With Oneil Cruz, owner of maybe more raw talent than anyone who does anything for a living anywhere on the planet? With Henry Davis, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 MLB Draft? With Nick Gonzales, Cherington's initial first-round pick at No. 7 overall a year earlier? With Jack Suwinski, who to everyone's credit burst onto the scene with 19 home runs in 2022?
Cruz is a wreck right now. On the field and off. He's 4 for his past 44, and half of those at-bats ended in strikeouts. And after everything he endured in 2023, it's excruciating to see.
He'll hit again. I believe in the player and the person. But there's no cause to believe that he'll be all he can be. Not in Pittsburgh. Not under this hitting coach and this management. Because there's barely any precedent to support such a thought.
Davis' development's been butchered to the extreme that it's a common laughing point around the baseball industry, I'm told. Some are of the mind that he was an over-draft -- though he'd have gone in the first 3-5, I feel, unconditionally -- but most are of the mind that the Pirates simply don't know what the hell they're doing with him. Not that it requires expertise to see that, if only for how they've bounced a No. 1 pick all over the field and decided only after Endy Rodriguez was lost for 2024 that, hey, yeah, let's try that No. 1 pick at his natural position.
Gonzales turns 25 next month, and he's still in the minors. Doing well there, but still in the minors.
Suwinski's slashing .191/.273/.309 with two home runs and seven RBIs. He turns 26 in July.
Those first two, Cruz and Davis, aren't just supposed to be everyday contributors. They're supposed to be, at minimum, above average. That's how it happens in Baltimore and St. Petersburg and other places where ... well, they know that the hell they're doing.
And what'll happen next with two other players, Jared Jones and Paul Skenes, at that same level or superior to Cruz and/or Davis?
It's not enough that Jones was haphazardly pulled from an amazing start Wednesday in New York after five innings and just 59 pitches, which had zero in common with any pattern over his entire professional career. No, it's far worse that Cherington appeared to roll Shelton, Oscar Marin and the field-level staff under the figurative bus for making this move ... unilaterally?
"I really respect their decision," Cherington would say of the coaching staff yesterday on his weekly show on 93.7 The Fan, "to have some perspective that this is a long war that we're fighting in 2024."
Their who what?
In New York, Shelton answered my question about Jones pitching on a fifth day after the previous start this way: "It was pre-determined he was throwing on five and we had a pitch count on him for today. It's his first time on five. I mean, this guy's one of our really good, young pitchers as he demonstrated today. We knew going into the game that it was going to be five."
Good thing, I guess, that I got it on video:
I mean, does Cherington think we're supposed to entertain some fantasy scenario that, for the first time in a half-decade, a decision of that magnitude wouldn't have emanated from 115 Federal or, at the very least, as part of a conversation with all concerned?
No, seriously, what was that? How did that even happen?
And how's that supposed to engender so much as a smattering of confidence in the broader process at hand?
What a joke. All of this.
Again, not this losing streak. Not the first month of this season. But quite literally, all of this. All five years to date.
They don't get forever. They can't keep kicking a can already riddled with dents. They can't keep making calls based on what might make them look smarter versus what might help them win.
Or can they?
I could remind that it took Bob Nutting a dozen years to decide Neal Huntington and company had to go, and this in the context that Huntington and company tasted success in 2013-15 that's solar systems away from where this team stands. For all that'd go awry within the minors, Huntington embraced sage advice regarding free agents that he'd receive from some smart lieutenants, and he did get to three playoffs.
Maybe Nutting will wait another few years. Maybe not. Once he did finally reach rope's end with the predecessors, he ponied up $17.2 million to make them all go away, almost as if he'd built up enough disappointment that it all erupted at once.
I know this already: Cherington's not about to fire Haines, no matter how abysmal the results, no matter how much of an albatross Haines becomes, whether in performance or in public perception. The loyalty there's fierce, both to Haines and to Haines' hitting philosophy, which Cherington passionately shares. The one where the principal goal's to run up the opposing starter's pitch count over ... you know, actual hitting. The one where players become so comfortable keeping the bat on the shoulder that, when the opportunity arises to drive in a run, they're still stuck in the default mode and watch third strikes right down the pipe.
Also and relevant, it's not as if Shelton's any exception to any of this. The brutal fielding and baserunning yesterday reflected directly on him. And remember, he's a former big-league hitting coach, and it's not as if he's making a difference in that category, either.
Reynolds described the collective offensive struggle this way yesterday: "Maybe not aggressive enough. Maybe a little passive. Have to capitalize with runners in scoring position. Just the things that lead to winning, really."
A little passive?
I followed up on that:
Imagine hearing that from the team's best player and not immediately tearing up the coaching rooms and clubhouse to find out how/why that's occurring but, rather, protecting a hitting coach/program and some nebulous philosophical stance.
Imagine thinking, even if Haines merits only a tiny fraction of the fault for what we've witnessed, that it wouldn't be more important to try something new after all this time.
Imagine being in charge of something, anything, and the only emotion shown -- whether outwardly or through action -- was the protocol-fueled firing of a minor-league hitting coach for fixing one of your most important players, or this triumphant celebration for having been the very worst at what they do:
The moment we found out!! pic.twitter.com/sf18aKF1lr
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) December 7, 2022
Can't believe they've never taken that video down.
Of the team's general state, Reynolds would say, "Everybody's frustrated."
Everybody? For sure?
• To a literally brighter note: There's no scene in all of sports akin to a Winnipeg Whiteout, the one and only original Whiteout in sports, and the NHL's unusually smart for having showcased it last night as the lone game in its prime-time slot. It's beyond belief. Press play on this:
• Going all-football for a week straight after this. The NFL Draft opens Thursday night. And that's OK by me. Barely stayed awake at the ballpark, and that's not an exaggeration. Sports are supposed to be fun, not, you know, a steaming pile of inexplicable excrement.
• Thanks for reading.
• Thanks for listening, too:
