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Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Roansy Contreras delivers during the first inning of the team's baseball game against the Colorado Rockies in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, May 24, 2022.
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Roansy Contreras dazzles in MLB return, but Pirates fall to Colorado Rockies

Gene J. Puskar/AP

Roansy Contreras dazzles in MLB return, but Pirates fall to Colorado Rockies

Roansy Contreras’ reintroduction didn’t end in a win, though he surely deserved one.

Contreras tossed five shutout innings in his first start back from Class AAA Indianapolis, leaving the Colorado Rockies’ offense looking lost. Unfortunately for the Pirates’ No. 6 prospect, his own team’s offense looked equally lost.

The Pirates’ bullpen let in one unearned run in the eighth inning, but the Pirates bats scored only one themselves. In extra innings, the Rockies plated their ghost runner on a one-out single in the 10th, and the Pirates couldn’t answer, falling 2-1 in extras. It’s the 10th time in their last 12 games that the Pirates have scored three runs or fewer. They haven’t scored five runs in a game since May 11.

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“I mean, I wish I had a better answer for you than I do – and I don’t,” manager Derek Shelton said. “We’ve got to figure it out because we pitched our ass off tonight and we didn’t give ourselves a chance to win because we are not creating any offense. We have to figure it out. We have to figure out how to have better, more consistent at bats because right now we’re not doing that.”

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Even still, the offense wasn’t the headline of Tuesday’s game. That honor belonged to Contreras. It wasn’t his MLB debut with the Pirates, but it might as well have been.

His actual MLB debut, last season against the Chicago Cubs, lasted just three innings. Then, when Contreras joined the Pirates earlier this season, he pitched out of the bullpen, logging a couple innings here and there when needed.

So for all intents and purposes, Tuesday marked the start of Contreras’ true, starter’s career in the big leagues. No real innings limit, no hybrid reliever scheduled to pitch four or five innings after Contreras. Just a 22-year-old top-100 prospect slotting into the Pirates’ rotation.

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And if that’s the framing of this start, then Contreras’ reintroduction to the majors went about as well as it could have. 

In the first inning, Contreras emphatically made his presence felt. He induced a lead-off flyout to Connor Joe, then dusted away the next two batters on swinging strikeouts. First came a 96 mile-per-hour fastball up and out of the zone that got a whiff from veteran, four-time all-star Charlie Blackmon. Next was a biting slider, swung through by C.J. Cron, who entered the game hitting .321 and tied for the National League lead with 11 home runs.

Contreras did work in and out of trouble at times, stranding two runners with a flyout in the second, then stranding two more with a swinging strikeout against Sam Hilliard in the fourth, but he punctuated his outing in a dominant way, too. Contreras struck out Elias Díaz and Joe in the fifth to begin a 1-2-3 final frame.

If one were looking for flaws, there were some like his 30-pitch fourth inning, but pointing that out would be nitpicking. A team who has experienced uneven starts nearly all season, searching for more consistency in the rotation, called upon its No. 6 prospect to toe the slab, and Contreras showed mighty flashes of what he can do.

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“Towards the end of my outing I was able to feel a lot more comfortable with my pitches,” Contreras said, through team translator Mike Gonzalez. “In the first two innings, there was some things I just needed to adjust and it was more battling it out and fighting out there. But I was able to find myself and get my groove and I was able to finish strong.”

While Contreras was the main event, especially in such a low-scoring affair, the Pirate who actually made his MLB debut Tuesday proved to be a worthwhile undercard. Outfielder Cal Mitchell, the organization’s 25th-ranked prospect on MLB Pipeline, was called up Tuesday afternoon and slotted right into the starting lineup, batting eighth and playing right field.

After lining out to right field in his first at-bat, Mitchell made his impact in the fifth. Fellow rookie Diego Castillo doubled just inside first base to get into scoring position. Mitchell then worked a 1-2 count, seeing five pitches before lifting a blooper over second base on the sixth pitch of the at-bat. It landed weakly in center field and Castillo, who made a good read on the ball, beat the throw home to open the game’s scoring.

“Amazing. I couldn't ask for much more,” Mitchell said. “It felt so good to be able to do that with all the people that I care about watching and share that moment with them later when I get home.”

That had the Pirates trending in the right direction, but with it being the lone run, there was almost no room for error, and an error is exactly what undid them in the eighth. To lead off the top of that inning, Rodolfo Castro couldn’t corral a ground ball in the hole wide of shortstop, allowing a runner to reach. Two singles scored the run, knotting things up.

In the 10th, rock solid reliever David Bednar allowed the Rockies’ ghost runner to score on a one-out single, and that was that. The Pirates couldn’t put anything else together, finishing the night with just five hits — all of them singles — to squander the start Contreras gave them.

Mike Persak: mpersak@post-gazette.com and Twitter @MikeDPersak

First Published: May 25, 2022, 2:13 a.m.
Updated: May 25, 2022, 3:17 a.m.

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