I'd asked Paul Skenes what I'd hoped was a fun question Friday afternoon at PNC Park: How cool would it be to have best bud and conversational competitor Jared Jones pitching here on the night before his big-league debut?
This upstanding young man's response:
"Yeah, I think that's the coolest part about these first couple days for me, just pitching back-to-back with him," he'd reply from the venue's press room table. "I've played against him forever, since we were 10 or 11 years old. I've known who he is for a while, so ... it's nice to be on the same side as him, for sure."
For sure.
About a month ago in New York, I'd asked Jones if he'd been keeping up his playfully catty comparisons with Skenes, even with Jones now facing the Mets and Skenes still at the time in the minors. And Jones beamed before showing me that's exactly who he'd been texting in that moment, in exactly that spirit.
Neat.
So, here they are, Pittsburgh. Both of them.
Are we having fun yet?
Jones was again more than good enough in the series opener with the Cubs by nightfall, his six-inning line consisting of three runs, two earned, and seven hits amid four strikeouts and two walks. But, as ever, it meant next to nothing within another sickly 7-2 loss in which all of the offense came from a solitary hit by newly recalled Nick Gonzales ...
Welcome back, Nick! pic.twitter.com/l65ofVujHC
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) May 10, 2024
... and swinging at the first pitch, no less. Yeah, they'll beat that out of the kid soon enough.
Sorry, not to be that guy, but this could've been such a dramatically different scenario. For Jones. For Skenes. For the city.
Oh, it could still be special. Even with the expected rain -- chances at 53% for the 4:05 p.m. first pitch -- I'm not going to go all soggy here. Take it from someone who was in the Nationals Park press box covering Stephen Strasburg's breathtaking debut, these events are special more often than not. Because the talented individuals are special themselves. And Skenes is all of that, maybe more.
It'll be awesome to see the place packed, to hear the crowd offer a rare-for-Pittsburgh two-strike clap, then to feel the roar with each K. It comes with the potential to produce a lifelong memory, and here's hoping for all concerned that's precisely what occurs. Heaven knows the baseball fans around here have more than earned it.
But that shouldn't mean that those running this operation, from Bob Nutting on down, have earned anything remotely resembling a holiday from blame for this team being this abominably bad with the bats in Year 5 of Nutting's front office headed off the field by Travis Williams and Ben Cherington, headed on the field by Derek Shelton and Andy Haines. Nothing, nothing, nothing prevented these people from having the hitting be at least league-average in the same summer that they knew Jones, then Skenes would show up on the North Shore. And it's beyond embarrassing that they allowed it and, worse, that they continue to allow it.
They do, though.
• The Pirates' starting pitchers have accumulated a combined 218 2/3 innings, sixth-most in Major League Baseball. The five teams ahead of them in this category -- Phillies, Mariners, Royals, Yankees, Rangers -- all own among the sport's best records, all at least four games over .500. Whereas the Pirates are 17-22 and plunging with each passing day.
• The Pirates are 14-2 when they score a modest four runs. Whereas they're now 3-20 when scoring less than four.
• The Pirates, following their opening dozen games, have the worst offense in baseball in that span. And by far, with a .191 batting average (29th of 30 teams), a .272 on-base percentage (30th), a .285 slugging percentage (30th by a margin of 42 freaking points!), 15 home runs (30th), 65 runs (30th by a margin of 15!) ... but hey, they're No. 1 in FanGraphs' 'soft contact' measure at 19.9%.
All they needed to do at the plate was not be a complete catastrophe. And within that, all they needed to do -- and pardon my crudeness -- was to give a crap.
They didn't. At all.
They could've acquired a first baseman like Rhys Hoskins out of free agency. Instead, the Brewers, based in a market two-thirds the size of Pittsburgh, ponied up for a two-year, $34 million contract that's already paid off in the form of eight home runs, a .794 OPS and everything that a player like that brings. And on this end, instead, the Pirates picked up Rowdy Tellez, a player who'd just been left out by the curb in Milwaukee, $3.2 million for one year. Which has paid off in the form of a .194 average, one home run way back on opening day, and eight RBIs.
And I could proceed to cite similar examples all over the depth chart, principally in center and right field, where all of the shopping was carried out in the basement at Burlington.
This was Nutting's cheapness and Cherington's cluelessness with identifying/developing hitters all rolled into one. Indefensible. And, once the season starts, irreversible.
And speaking of what the Brewers left out on the curb: No, it's not all on Haines, the hitting coach Cherington scooped up soon after his firing in Milwaukee. Something of this scope could never be about any one person. But Haines abides by Cherington's passive-approach philosophy at the plate and, one after the other, hitters come to Pittsburgh and get worse at -- gasp! -- hitting. Every last non-pitcher on the 26-man roster's currently under-performing with the exception of Connor Joe, which really ought to win Joe some down-ballot MVP votes, and that's been the case here since Haines said hello.
Think it's more on the lack of talent?
Hey, go nuts. But also, go ask 29 other executives if they'd be able to squeeze more from a No. 1 overall pick than Henry Davis going 11 for 68 with 29 strikeouts before being sent back to the minors again. They'll answer, but only after they get done laughing.
So yeah, they'll put on quite the spectacle today, jacked-up ticket prices and all. And I'll reiterate a third time that I'm for-real looking forward to it myself.
But tomorrow?
Not one thing will have changed regarding the hitting. Not. One. Thing.
• I spent more of my Friday on football, and I've got another full column, this from the Steelers' rookie minicamp on Payton Wilson. Tons more coverage, too, on the Feed from Amanda Filipcic-Godsey and Corey Crisan.
• Thanks for reading!
