CHICAGO — No jokes about Pirates pitchers straining their necks while staring at home runs, please. And try to keep the historical-context stuff to a minimum, too. It's there. It's bad. Let's focus on other things.
The Pirates stunk while getting swept in a three-game set over the weekend, Sunday’s 16-6 loss to the Cubs at Wrigley Field putting the Pirates out of their collective misery and bringing to 47 the total of runs their pitching staff allowed, which tied the modern-day franchise record for a three-game series.
Seriously, forget all that.
The bigger-picture takeaway here should involve what to make of this whole situation, how their pitching went from a legitimate strength over the season’s first month to a liability lately and how the Pirates can fix that problem.
Assuming, of course, they’re willing to admit they have one.
“I don’t have the concern that you seem to have about the men out there,” manager Clint Hurdle said, talking about his pitching staff. “We had a concern [Saturday night] about how we’re going to bounce back after two games. How’d we bounce back early?
“Unfortunately, we got on the wrong side of the pitching thing, you can’t get the guys that you’d like to get out there, and it changes the dynamic of the game.”
Hurdle has a point. The Pirates put together a five-run third Sunday to grab a two-run lead before the afternoon went to hell, with the Cubs clobbering five more home runs to bring their series total to 14.
Hurdle’s point was that the Pirates didn’t have a lead, so he couldn’t use his most reliable options out of the bullpen in Richard Rodriguez, Keone Kela and Felipe Vazquez, perhaps even Francisco Liriano.
Instead, he once again had to rely on guys such as Yacksel Rios and Williams Jerez, pitchers who earlier this season were designated for assignment.
In fact, the Pirates bullpen on Sunday featured five pitchers who were DFA’d by another team this season, plus a couple more in Alex McRae, Geoff Hartlieb and Clay Holmes who haven’t exactly been reliable options at this level.
Is that Hurdle’s fault? Hardly.
He can only play who’s on his roster, although it seems a little crazy to hold back the high-leverage guys while the Cubs basically take batting practice, Chicago posting a .496 on-base percentage and an OPS of 1.368 over three days.
“I think we need to keep it in perspective, look at the individuals involved and review the tape of the guys who were on the mound,” Hurdle said. “We have some really good video to review from San Francisco. We’ve got some things that we know we have to improve upon coming out of this series.”
Again, Hurdle’s not wrong, but if you’re going to say perspective is needed for “the individuals involved,” isn’t that a fancier way of saying these guys really shouldn’t be put in this situation?
Also, the problems weren’t confined to the middle relievers, either. Pirates starters in this series lasted a total of nine innings and gave up 24. That’s putrid. And general manager Neal Huntington has offered no indication he’s willing to overhaul the rotation in the offseason; in all likelihood, it’ll be the same cast of characters next season, too.
But when you turn things over to the bullpen and the game’s close, it’s not absurd to think it should stay that way. Or if it doesn’t, maybe it’s time to go get someone who will get the job done. And not on the waiver wire.
“At the end of the day, we couldn’t get to the right side of our bullpen,” Hurdle said. “We actually tried to get there as early as the third inning and still couldn’t pull it off. They swung the bats as well as I’ve seen them swing the bats. Unfortunately I think we played a big part in that.”
Trevor Williams would not disagree with that assessment. He started and experienced trouble from the outset, with the third batter of the game, Kris Bryant, hitting a three-run homer.
Pitch execution was what Williams cited as the biggest concern for him personally, though it was a common theme that run throughout the weekend, when the Pirates allowed double-digit runs in every game.
“That was kind of the tale of the tape this series,” Williams said of pitch execution. “And I think it’s just something that collectively as a staff we need to hone in on.”
The easy thing could be to look at this three-game series and chalk it up to the wind blowing out Friday and a desperate Cubs team trying to keep pace in the National League’s Central Division. Some of that’s fair, but that doesn’t adequately address the larger problem.
It’s also not entirely pitching coach Ray Searage’s fault. When a boxer punches above his weight and gets knocked to the canvas, you don’t blame the trainer.
But the problems the Pirates experienced here weren’t small — the 47 runs were the most by an MLB team in a three-game set since Seattle had that many against Toronto April 14-16, 2000 — nor where they confined to one miserable weekend.
The Pirates have now allowed 10 or more runs 29 times, a franchise record for the modern era, while their ERA has ballooned to 5.23, which would also qualify as the second-worst franchise mark of the modern era, a tick shy of the 1930 club (5.24).
“Nobody is looking for sympathy out there,” Hurdle said. “Nobody is looking for pity. We have to fight and keep playing. It’s what they’ve done most of their life. Just because you’re doing it here doesn’t make it any more dramatic. You just need to figure it out and play better.”
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.
First Published: September 15, 2019, 9:54 p.m.