PHOENIX — The video board at Chase Field calculates the current pitcher’s ERA in real time, run by run, out by out. When Nick Kingham walked to the mound Monday night, his ERA was 5.94. He allowed hit after hit after hit, slowly thrusting the number higher. When he walked to the dugout for the final time, it had climbed to 7.84.
Kingham’s performance during the Pirates’ 9-3 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks looked similar to what Steven Brault put forth the day before. Injuries to Jameson Taillon and Chris Archer required Brault and Kingham to join the rotation.
“We didn’t get the distance we wanted out of our last two guys,” manager Clint Hurdle said. “We won one of the games. Tonight we got beat. We got barreled up and got beat.”
Archer will return Wednesday, forcing one of them back to the bullpen. But Taillon, whom the Pirates transferred to the 60-day injured list Monday to make room for Jake Elmore on the 40-man roster, won’t return until July at the earliest.
“That’s why you’ve got multiple-inning relievers,” Hurdle said. “You look to maybe move some things around. Archer’s coming back; there’s a day off. We’ll take it one day at a time.”
Kingham allowed seven runs and 10 hits in four innings Monday. He threw 36 pitches in the first inning and 61 through the first two. The top of Arizona’s order, Jarrod Dyson, Eduardo Escobar and David Peralta, went 6 for 9 with a double, triple and home run against Kingham.
“I feel like everything they were swinging at, they were touching pretty good,” Kingham said. “Just one of those nights where it doesn’t go my way.”
The outing resembled Brault’s from the day before. He allowed six runs and nine hits in 32/3 innings. The Pirates scored seven runs in the seventh and eighth innings to come back against the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday. They would not fare as well on Monday.
They had as many hits (13) as the Diamondbacks did, but went 4 for 17 with runners in scoring position and left 12 men on base. They loaded the bases with nobody out in the seventh, but their 3-4-5 hitters — Melky Cabrera, Bell and Bryan Reynolds, the three best hitters, at present, on the team — all struck out.
“Sometimes you just scratch your head,” Hurdle said.
In times like these the mind can wander to Indianapolis, where Mitch Keller, one of the top pitching prospects in baseball, is currently honing his craft. The 23-year-old right-hander, the Pirates’ second-round pick in the 2014 draft, has a 3.97 ERA and 42 strikeouts in 34 innings.
If a team promotes a player prior to the first week or two of June, and that player never returns to the minors, he could eventually earn a fourth (extra) year of eligibility for salary arbitration. Players do this by gaining enough service time to rank in the top 22 percent of players with at least two years of service, but not quite three; this is know as Super Two status. These considerations sometimes (but not always) cause teams to wait to promote top prospects.
Last year, the Pirates called up Austin Meadows in May, and this year they promoted Cole Tucker and Bryan Reynolds, though injuries forced their hand in those cases. It isn’t inconceivable that they could do the same with Keller at some point.
Keller is working on a slider/cutter, and general manager Neal Huntington expressed reluctance earlier this month to promote him in the midst of that process. Keller has also been up and down: Two mediocre starts, followed by four good ones, and then a three-inning, three-run, three-walk start May 8.
OK, so between service time, the slider and the mixed bag of results, the Pirates might not think it’s Keller time. But in addition to Keller, Indy’s rotation includes Eduardo Vera (5.35 ERA in his first Class AAA exposure), Alex McRae (5.40, though he’s been much better in his past two starts), Rookie Davis (6.30 ERA) and Dario Agrazal, who just reached triple-A at the end of April. None of them, besides Keller, are on the 40-man roster. JT Brubaker is hurt. Brandon Waddell is a reliever now.
Hurdle referred to Chris Stratton, a recently acquired right-hander, as a reliever and spot starter with the opportunity to earn more. He made five starts, none of them particularly good, with the Los Angeles Angels before going to the bullpen and eventually being traded.
Kingham’s turn in the rotation lands Saturday against the San Diego Padres. He said he adjusted well physically to the rotation after beginning the year in relief.
“I felt great, actually,” he said. “I felt like the ball was coming out good, warm weather. Everything lined up for me today. The line didn’t go accordingly.”
Bill Brink: bbrink@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BrinkPG.
First Published: May 14, 2019, 5:13 a.m.
