My daughter, in town for a rare visit last summer, said she really wanted to go to a Pirates game. I obliged, as I almost always do with her. I reluctantly bought two tickets for, if memory serves, $186 for a game against the Milwaukee Brewers on July 1. We sat a row behind the Pirates dugout.
“This is going to be good,” I remember telling Taylor. “Roansy Contreras is pitching for the Pirates. He looks like a really good young pitcher.”
The night didn’t quite go as planned. Contreras didn’t make it out of the second inning.
The Pirates lost, 19-2.
At least the fireworks were good.
The Pirates’ game against the Houston Astros Monday night at PNC Park brought back bad memories. Contreras didn’t make it out of the fourth inning. The Pirates lost, 8-2.
And there were no fireworks.
At least I got to watch this fiasco from the press box for free.
That made it less disappointing but only marginally. I was especially eager to see how Contreras matched up against the world champs. He didn’t. The Pirates were playing for the first time without Oneil Cruz, who is out long-term with a fractured left ankle, and could have used a lift from Contreras. He didn’t provide it.
“He never seemed like he was in sync in his delivery,” Derek Shelton said. “He was battling it the whole game. Because of it, he scattered the ball. When you scatter the ball against this team and then you come back to the middle of the plate, there’s going to be damage.”
This one felt like it was over soon after it started. The Astros scored a run in the first inning, three in the second, a run in the third and two more in the fourth off Contreras, who was wild all night. Three of his four walks were four-pitch walks. He hit a batter and threw a wild pitch. Only 44 of his 83 pitches were strikes.
The Astros clobbered the pitches Contreras did get over the plate for nine hits. Even a couple of their outs on line drives to left field were hit hard. He didn’t fool anybody.
Contreras looked every bit like a kid, just 23, still learning his craft.
Which he is.
“Just a bad outing overall,” Contreras said.
The Pirates got off to a 6-3 start in large part because of the success of their young pitchers. Contreras beat the Boston Red Sox in his previous start with 5 2/3 innings of one-run ball. Mitch Keller, 27, pitched seven superb innings in a win against the Red Sox the next day. Johan Oviedo, 25, didn’t allow a run in 6 2/3 innings in his win Sunday against the Chicago White Sox.
Those three pitchers are the Pirates’ future. They have to be the team’s future if it is going to get to the point of being competitive and maybe beyond. Each of their starts is going to be worth watching even if they won’t always go well. Forget about Rich Hill and Vince Velasquez. They are just stopgaps until Luis Ortiz and Quinn Priester are ready for the big leagues.
Shelton chalked this Contreras start up to one of those nights against, obviously, a fearsome lineup even if the Astros were playing without injured Jose Altuve, who is out with a broken thumb.
“The one thing we’ve seen from Ro over the course of the last two years is, when he has something that he battles, he’s able to adjust and fix it and come back and be able to learn and grow from it,” Shelton said.
Keller gets the start against the Astros Tuesday night. Oviedo will face the Cardinals in St. Louis Friday night. Contreras will follow against the Cardinals on Saturday afternoon.
There will be no Cruz to keep our attention for probably four months.
That responsibility falls to Keller, Oviedo and Contreras.
They have to be the primary reasons we watch Pirates baseball this spring and into the long, hot summer.
Ron Cook: rcook@post-gazette.com and Twitter@RonCookPG. Ron Cook can be heard on the “Cook and Joe” show weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 93.7 The Fan.
First Published: April 11, 2023, 9:30 a.m.