Kovacevic: Cervelli's bruising, battering emblematic of terrible trip

SAN DIEGO -- Francisco Cervelli wasn't immediately available for comment late Saturday night following the Pirates' 4-2 loss to the Padres at Petco Park, but he had plenty of cause: He was in the hot tub trying to recover, no doubt in vain, from some serious pain.

Not unlike his team, it should be known, after the group as a whole fell to 2-6 on this road trip, 50-54 overall, 5 1/2 games off the Central lead, nine games out of the wild card and, seemingly, a bazillion miles removed from that buoyant sweep of the Brewers just last week.

"It's tough right now," Josh Harrison was musing in a mostly silent visiting clubhouse. "But we need to bounce back. We do."



If nothing else, they could cite Cervelli's evening as the role model.

In the San Diego fourth, he was brought down by a foul bunt off the bat of Cory Spangenberg, struck in a particularly unfortunate part of the male anatomy, and he lay writhing in the dirt for nearly three minutes:



Upon his finally getting back to his feet, Spangenberg lasered Ivan Nova's next pitch for a single, followed by a Hunter Renfroe double that put the Padres up, 3-0.

In his next at-bat, the very next inning, Cervelli stepped into the box after two singles to right represented the Pirates' first hits off rookie Dinelson Lamet. And he'd get brushed back within millimeters of his face ...



... then line into a double play:



Oh, wait. It gets worse.

In the seventh, the Pirates finally began rallying, a run came across, and the bases were loaded for -- who else? -- Cervelli, who finally had a chance to sprinkle some of baseball's hallowed hidden vigorish on his miserable mess. But, uh ...



Yeah. And I'm positive I don't need to add that Cervelli made the 27th out on a called third strike by Carlos Torres that was far enough outside to have broached the Mexican border:



So, did I mention it was tough?

Well, Sunday will be easier for Cervelli, as he'll get a rare rest in favor of Chris Stewart. And it should -- that's should -- get easier for the Pirates in going head to head with Clayton Richard and his 5.37 ERA. But the cold water that's been doused on this cameo appearance in the contenders' column has come about almost entirely because they aren't beating guys like Richard. Or Jeff Samardzija. Or Travis Wood.

And now the precocious but still-raw Lamet, who held the Pirates to two runs and two hits over six innings while striking out seven. He threw 96-97 mph, and he had his slider diving under bats.

“He was around the zone pretty much most of the day,” Andy Green, the Padres' manager, said. “It wasn’t pinpoint command, but we really don’t look at him as that type of pitcher at this point in time, anyway. It’s stuff over location. And it’s trusting that the stuff’s electric enough that, if you mix it effectively, it’s going to get batters out. And it did that.”

"It was a combination of the spraying command and the slider," Clint Hurdle said. "It wasn't something that we matched up with as well as we would have liked to."

Nope. And now they're faced with one more game before Major League Baseball's trading deadline Monday, without anywhere near the atmosphere that had accompanied them to open this trip that would go 1-2 in Denver, 1-2 in San Francisco and now ... my goodness ... a sweep at the hands of the $68 million Padres?

Hurdle habitually bristles at questions about a given game's importance, and this was no exception.

"When you've been in the game 43 years, I kind of chuckle at your question, truthfully," he replied to a San Diego reporter's question on that topic. "Because the level of frustration is ... you keep playing. Two weeks ago, where were we? You're probably not aware."

The reporter wasn't. On July 15, the Pirates were eight games back.

"So we just keep hunting, keep playing," Hurdle continued. "You don't get concerned about all that other noise. Because that's what it is. You've got to take care of your own team. You've got to take care of yourselves. That's what we need to do right now."

DK'S THREE THOUGHTS

1. Is this Nova trouble now a trend?

The Nova acquisition has been an absolute blessing for the Pirates ... right up until the past three starts, when he's been bopped for 27 hits, including eight more hits and four San Diego runs in five mostly blah innings.

A week ago in Denver, Hurdle openly expressed worry about Nova keeping balls up in the zone, as well as hope that it would soon be remedied.

Obviously, it wasn't with this changeup:



That home run originated off the bat of Manuel Margot in the San Diego fifth, and it wound up bonking off the second tier of the old Western Metal Supply Co., a level one really shouldn't be able to reach without an elevator.

Still, the consensus afterward was that Nova made strides in getting the ball down, if not necessarily where he wanted at all points: