ST. LOUIS -- Colin Holderman sees the Pirates' bullpen as a group that continues to evolve. Surely there have been learning experiences and poor outings for young and veteran relief arms alike, but things may be trending upward for the collective bunch.
"We're definitely hitting our stride as a unit," Holderman told me following the Pirates' 4-3 loss to the Cardinals at Busch Stadium Thursday afternoon. "We had some bumps in the road like every season, it's a long year, but people are really finding their identity. We have some young guys in here who have been put in some situations they've never been put in before and they're learning. Now it's showing."
The bullpen was reliable throughout the series in St. Louis, one in which the Pirates began with a 2-1 win on Tuesday night and concluded with a pair of close defeats, including a 4-2 setback on Wednesday.
In total, eight different arms were called upon to follow quality outings from Pirates starters, as Aroldis Chapman, Holderman and David Bednar were first tasked with keeping things in check after Paul Skenes' 6 1/3 scoreless innings in the opener. A day later, Carmen Mlodzinski and Kyle Nicolas were effective in allowing one combined run and striking out eight in four innings in relief of Bailey Falter. And then, in this latest loss that featured four runs charged to starter Mitch Keller through six serviceable innings, Justin Bruihl, Hunter Stratton -- who exited with an apparent shoulder injury after 1/3 of an inning -- and newly-claimed Dennis Santana united to throw two scoreless innings.
The eight relievers allowed just two runs on six hits with a singular walk and 12 strikeouts in 8 2/3 innings. Furthermore, Skenes, Falter and Keller collectively saw seven charged runs come across on 21 hits and a walk in 16 1/3 innings. They combined to strike out 17 batters and, while Falter certainly would have liked to go deeper into the game, the trio put their team in a position to compete for a win. And the bullpen followed suit.
"Stuff-wise, I think we have some of the best stuff in the big leagues in our bullpen," said Holderman, who has been one of the most consistent pieces in the bullpen with just two earned runs, nine walks and 27 strikeouts in 22 2/3 innings this season. "People are starting to click, we're making the right pitches in the right counts and it's going to be special. I think it's going to be real nice, especially late in the year."
Pitching-wise, the Pirates are starting to find their form. The starters have been consistently productive throughout the season and now the bullpen -- despite some areas that still require further improvement -- is coming along.
But issues surrounding an offense that produced 30 runs over the course of its recent six-game homestand came into play during the first three games of a six-game road trip. It wasn't as if there was complete incompetence on the offensive front, taking away the first six hitless innings against Miles Mikolas on Tuesday night. Still, there were missed scoring opportunities in each game, including one with runners on the corners in the fourth inning of this one, and the three-or-less runs scored in three winnable games against a National League Central rival weren't exactly ideal.
"We pitched well," Derek Shelton said. "We had an opportunity in the first yesterday with Sonny (Gray) and we didn't capitalize, and then he kind of locked it in. But the bullpen pitched really well throughout the series."
While the struggles weren't as extreme, the series was at times reminiscent of the team's Bay Area trip in late April/early May. Like they did in these three games, they lacked big hits at crucial points and squandered opportunities to score. That was a stretch in which they lost five of six games within a larger sample of 16 losses in 21 games.
Not to say things would spiral from this point and the offense wouldn't be able to regain it's footing that has allowed it to score 140 runs since May 11, but the Pirates missed out on chances to win games over the last few days because of an inability to generate enough runs and support its pitching staff, including Keller who extended his streak of 45 consecutive outings of five-plus innings and kept his team within reach.
"He still gave us a chance to win the game. Six innings, gave up four runs," Shelton said. "We still had opportunities to win the game, and that's really all you ask for out of a starter. And he's been so good over the last seven or eight starts. It's hard to expect that he's going to be that good every time out. Again, still gave us a chance to win."
