CHICAGO — With the score tied and an announced crowd of 35,596 under the lights at Wrigley Field, Tyler Glasnow walked from the bullpen in right field to the mound in the sixth inning. When Clint Hurdle made the call for the 6-foot-8 right-hander to face the Cubs' bottom three hitters, it was the first time Glasnow entered a game this season with the score tied.
Glasnow proceeded to make the same mistakes that plagued him in the major leagues prior to this season, allowing four runs on three hits as the Cubs pulled away for a 13-5 victory over the Pirates on Wednesday night. It continued the team's struggles in middle relief and dropped their record to 8-3.
Above all else, the loss illustrated that Glasnow, for as promising as he looked in his previous three outings, is still a work in progress as a big-league reliever.
"I think so, with the exception of his stuff being pretty good," Justin Meccage, the Pirates' assistant pitching coach, told DKPittsburghSports.com when asked if Glasnow reverted back to bad habits. "The fastballs were literally right down the middle."
On the surface, though, it appeared Glasnow was the victim of bad luck. After all, he recorded only two outs despite striking out two batters and inducing a fielder's choice groundout.
He struck out Javy Baez swinging with a curveball in the dirt to lead off the inning, only for Baez to reach first on a wild pitch. Baez then advanced to second on a grounder to first and stole third base. Tommy La Stella followed with a one-hopper to Josh Harrison, whose throw home bounced well in front of home plate and skipped behind Francisco Cervelli, allowing Baez to score.
Glasnow then allowed hits to three of the next four batters, including an RBI double to deep center field by Kris Bryant that had an exit velocity of 110.2 mph. The former top prospect was pulled after Ben Zobrist's two-run single to center on a fastball high and over the plate gave the Cubs an 8-4 lead.
Glasnow threw 21 of his 28 pitches for strikes, producing five called strikes with his four-seam fastball that reached 98.6 mph, and he struck out Willson Contreras looking with an inside fastball on a 3-2 count, but Hurdle expressed displeasure with the curveball that led to the wild pitch and Glasnow's all-too-familiar shoddy fastball command.
"We didn’t help him on defense," Hurdle said. "He did get a swing on a breaking ball, but that’s a wild pitch. It’s tough to corral that ball. A lot of the fastballs that were thrown were up in the zone. Our defense didn’t help him, but he didn’t make a lot of quality pitches out there either."
Glasnow, though, had a different opinion on how he performed.
"I think towards the end I could have made a couple better pitches," he said. "Overall, I felt all right. Just bad luck. That’s baseball."
Josh Smoker replaced Glasnow and allowed four more runs in the seventh, including a two-run homer to Ian Happ. Dovydas Neverauskas pitched the eighth and had a curveball hit over the wall in left by Baez, who homered twice for a second consecutive day.
The Pirates' bullpen has a 7.51 ERA in 38 1/3 innings, which is by far the worst in Major League Baseball, and opponents are batting .282 against them. Glasnow, though, was one of the few bright spots prior to Wednesday. He had allowed only one run in six innings this season, holding opponents to a .150 batting average.
Meccage, the Pirates' former minor-league pitching coordinator who served as Glasnow's pitching coach at Double-A Altoona in 2015, said Glasnow's curveball has improved, as well as his fastball command. Additionally, the velocity on that fastball has averaged 96 mph so far this season after it dropped to 94.37 last April.
But Glasnow's slow delivery — which Hurdle said was 1.6 seconds — allowed Baez to steal third base easily. Then, he threw his four-seam fastball high in the zone to both Bryant and Zobrist. "That’s exactly what it is," Meccage said when asked if it's a product of Glasnow learning in a new role. "As he gains more command of the strike zone, I think he’s going to find he can move around a little bit. He’s been working on pitching in, down and away. You can’t throw fastballs by these big league hitters. He has to control the fastball."
Glasnow said: "I was throwing pitches for strikes and they hit it, so that’s how baseball is." Last week, following Glasnow's second relief outing this season, Hurdle ruled out using Glasnow in a high-leverage situation, saying he wished for him to grow comfortable in his role before making any changes to the bullpen.
Steven Brault, the left-handed starter who began the season in the bullpen, was pulled after the fifth inning with the score tied 4-4, creating a need for a long reliever. Hurdle used Glasnow since it was the bottom of the order, and he thought Glasnow's pitches would fare well against the Cubs.
"We rolled over the lineup," Hurdle explained. "We were right there. I felt he had the pitches to go at. I didn’t necessarily say we were going to pitch him when we were losing. I felt it was a good opportunity for him to go out there and see what he could do with the opportunity."
Glasnow, who has 321 strikeouts to 116 walks in 43 career starts at Triple-A, has a 6.75 ERA and 1.86 WHIP in 92 innings with the Pirates since making his major league debut in July 2016. The Pirates are in need of stability in both long and middle relief, but his latest struggles created more questions about both him and the team's bullpen.
"I felt really good, yeah," Glasnow said of entering with the score tied. "I’d like to do it more. Unfortunately, it didn’t go my way today, but it felt fine."
1. Brault shows growing pains on the mound, too.
Brault's command was inconsistent for a second consecutive start, as he needed 28 pitches to get through the Cubs' four-run second. He gave up one run on a wild pitch before Baez hit a 434-foot, three-run homer to right-center to give the Cubs a 4-3 lead. But Brault responded with three consecutive scoreless innings, striking out Victor Caratini with a changeup low and outside to strand a runner on third in the fifth.
The left-handed starter gave up seven hits with two walks and forced the Cubs to strand the bases loaded in the third, and he described his struggles in the second as the game "speeding up" on him.
"After I came out and we talked about it, it’s easy to look back, hindsight 20-20, but the game did speed up on me," Brault said. "I was telling Ray [Searage], I hate that. I hate that because the immaturity goes along with that. … To me, that’s something that can’t happen, so that’s something I’m going to make sure I focus on going forward."
Hurdle called it a "gritty" start for Brault after he threw 60 of his 94 pitches for strikes.
2. Huntington has a decision to make.
The Pirates can no longer sit idle and continue to use Smoker in middle relief, as the Cubs displayed with their four-run seventh inning. The lefty gave up five hits, including three doubles and the two-run homer by Happ. Smoker has a 9.00 ERA and 2.75 WHIP in five appearances. Opponents are batting .474 against him.
The problem is there's no potential replacement at Triple-A Indianapolis. That roster does not have a left-handed pitcher since Kevin Siegrist declined his minor-league assignment and Jack Leathersich was designated for assignment. Additionally, none of the right-handed relievers have been particularly impressive.
Neal Huntington must decide whether to take a chance on a right-hander such as Kyle Crick or try to acquire a left-hander either via waivers or trade.
"We didn’t have much quality on the mound after Brault left," Hurdle said. "We had some tough innings. We had three different tough innings."
3. Eight relievers can be a problem sometimes.
The Pirates' decision to carry eight relievers worked out well in Detroit when the season opener went 13 innings and a doubleheader was played for the finale. But switching back to National League rules has shown there could be a need for the club to have a fifth bench player. Adam Frazier was in the on-deck circle in the fifth inning, but Brault took the final at-bat of the inning with no runners on and two outs.
Hurdle didn't want to risk using a pinch-hitter in that situation against left-handed reliever Brian Duensing, especially when three of his four hitters on the bench were lefties. The only right-handed hitter was Elias Diaz, and managers avoid using the backup catcher as a pinch-hitter so early in the game.
Brault, who went 2 for 3, nearly got a hit, sending a live drive to center that required Albert Almora Jr. to make a diving catch, but the Pirates would have benefited from having someone such as Jose Osuna to turn to with the score tied.
4. Freese makes a difference on defense.
Colin Moran has looked shaky at third base at times, although his difficulties could be the result of early-season rust. He's also looked sharp at times, particularly his arm strength. But David Freese is a remarkable upgrade defensively. The 34-year-old was a finalist for the National League Gold Glove at third last season, registering 8 defensive runs saved.
Although he started only one game prior to Wednesday, he was strong defensively, starting a double play in the first with an athletic backhanded play to collect a grounder, and he corralled a slow roller with his right hand in the second before firing a throw to first to end the inning.
5. The bench proves valuable at the plate.
Corey Dickerson had hit safely in six straight games, going 12 for 25 with five doubles, a triple, a home run and eight RBIs. However, he was not in the starting lineup for the second game of this series. Neither was Moran, the first Pirates rookie to have 11 or more hits and at least eight RBIs in his first nine games with the team since Jack Merson in 1951.
Hurdle opted instead to start Freese at third base and Rodriguez in left field. It would be easy to try to criticize Hurdle's decision. After all, both Dickerson and Moran are playing well, and they're well-rested with the Pirates having three games postponed. But Hurdle's philosophy is to keep his bench players engaged, and both players produced.
Freese went 2 for 4 with a solo home run in the eighth inning, and Rodriguez hit a three-run homer in the second to break a scoreless tie.
"It doesn’t surprise me," Hurdle said. "They love to compete. They love to play. They’ve worked hard when they’re not playing. Those are good things for them, they’re good things for the team. It will keep them involved and help them produce."