Man, Josh Bell had a miserable Sunday afternoon at PNC Park. Struck out all three times up. Caught looking on a slow curve for the first K, hacked over another curve for the next one, foul-tipped a fastball down the pipe for the capper.
Which could only have been worse if he'd left a bunch of runners on base and the Pirates lost, so yeah, both of those happened, too.
"Rinse it off. Keep expecting to win," the kid would tell me after stranding four as the team's five-game winning streak went poof with a 5-0 loss to the Giants. "That goes for all of us. Even with me, three Ks, whatever ... I feel like I'm just missing balls. So I can't change too much. I feel like I've been right on pitches for a week. It's just a matter of time."
It really does feel that way.
Because this lineup really can hit, as I'd been writing since their first few days in Bradenton, and as the statistics powerfully support:
This one was a stinker, and not just Bell. There were seven total hits, four for extra bases, and the collective went 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position. Some of it was to the credit of San Francisco's smart lefty Derek Holland, who finessed his way around five walks for 6 1/3 solid innings with what Clint Hurdle called "a kitchen-sink approach" of mixing every pitch in his repertoire. But some of it had to have been just a natural cooling off, as the Pirates had just ripped off those five in a row on the strength of a .331 team average and 12 home runs.
As Bell spoke ... whatever.
When he was done with that third K up there, coincidentally or otherwise, a hard rain began to pelt PNC Park. But rather than heading deep into the dugout to stay dry, as our Matt Sunday captured in the photo just below, he chose to sit with Gregory Polanco on the perimeter and get all wet.
And that wasn't a coincidence.
"Cervy's been carrying our offense, along with a couple other guys, and that's great because we're putting up some big numbers as a team," Bell told me, referring, of course, to Francisco Cervelli, whose two hits — out of the leadoff spot, no less — raised his riveting slash line to .305/.414/.571. "But when guys like me and Polanco get going, and we get J-Hay back ... that's something else. That's when you're going to see something else."
TAP ABOVE FOR BOXSCORE, STANDINGS, VIDEOJosh Harrison will be back soon from the broken hand that's cost him six weeks. He told me after this game that could be as soon as Tuesday against the White Sox, though that obviously isn't his call.
J-Hay will be J-Hay.
"I'm so ready," he was saying. "I can't wait."
That'll be huge.
Same for Polanco. His .226 average makes zero sense when weighed against eight home runs a reasonable .333 on-base percentage fueled by a team-high 21 walks. He was given this day off, but he's on an 11-for-33 roll over his past nine games, and he homered twice during the winning streak. He'll be fine.
Same for Bell. I know, his .252/.333/.388 line is right around his .257/.339/.443 career mark, but we're talking about a 25-year-old fresh off his rookie season. And we're talking about the primary shortcoming at the moment being the low slugging output, particularly the three home runs. Anyone who's seen Bell at any point in his life, going way back to when he was clearing light towers in Texas high school ball, knows the power will come.
And I'm reluctant to even mention Jung Ho Kang, as he still isn't engaged in any game-type activity yet in extended spring training, but he'll return this summer, as well.
That's the point here. All this is still to come.
Meanwhile, the most prominent actual question marks have been exclamation points, as newcomers Corey Dickerson and Colin Moran — both acquired in offseason trades by Neal Huntington — are right up there with Cervelli and Starling Marte among the lineup's four most productive hitters, all at .288 or higher in batting average, .812 or higher in OPS.
I asked Huntington before the game if he'd anticipated the lineup working out as it has:
Good for him. Both acquisitions are to his credit.
In 2017, only the Giants and Padres were worse offensively in all of Major League Baseball than the Pirates and their .244/.318/.386 line, and that was with Andrew McCutchen. Getting Cervelli healthy and having Marte not suspended has helped, but Dickerson and Moran have made the biggest difference, putting all concerned in a position of strength once the rest come around. Which, again, they will.
This is fun. First place and playoff contention might or might not last. But a baseball team that can hit is always a blast.
• Ivan Nova's three-year, $26 million contract, which I loved when it was signed, isn't exactly panning out.
Sure, he "rebounded well," as Hurdle worded it, from his previous start, a two-inning, five-run cameo last week in Chicago. But there wasn't much else to like and, believe it or not, I'm not referring to his overall line — 5 2/3 innings, four runs, eight hits — since Richard Rodriguez's first pitch in relief was a three-run home run that stuck Nova with half of his charged runs.
He just isn't finding an anchor.
He'd somehow wriggled through five scoreless innings despite frequent hard contact, but Gorkys Hernandez, who I'm pretty sure never hit a ball out of the infield, even in batting practice, while with the Pirates, launched an inside fastball into the bleachers for the game's icebreaking run. A couple batters later, Brandon Belt singled, Brandon Crawford doubled him home, and Hurdle came for the ball after just 81 pitches, 55 of those for strikes but only two strikeouts and — get this — six swings and misses.
Hurdle praised Nova for sticking by his four-seam fastball — he's more of a sinkerballer — but Nova didn't seem to want any of that when I brought it up:
In three starts this month, he's at 14 earned runs and 25 hits over 12 1/3 innings. Maybe he just needs to try to be the best version of himself rather than wondering what the Giants might do.
• Rodriguez's pitch to Hundley was the flattest, most misfired slider anyone will see on the North Shore this summer:
• Give it up for Cutch. His Giants have been struggling, but his single to right in the seventh — yeah, that got applause, too — gave him a 12-game hitting streak. He is who he is. If San Francisco's pitchers can ever get it together, that's an exceptional lineup.
• Funny line from Huntington about Kyle Crick, one of the Cutch acquisitions, pitching to Cutch the other night: “I’m just hoping for Kyle’s sake he doesn’t lose a fastball and hit him in the ribs. He’d never have been able to show his face in Pittsburgh again.”
• Jameson Taillon showed me his middle finger, and I didn't take it personally since he was merely illustrating the healing of the laceration there that forced him out after three innings Friday. He insisted he should be fine for his next scheduled start, Wednesday against the White Sox.
He also shared with me that the filthy pitch he used to bury Cutch on the latter's critical strikeout in that game wasn't a curveball, as almost everyone — including Cutch himself — had thought.
"Slider," Taillon told me with a broad smile. "Working on that one."
Oh, my.
• Annnnnnnnnd here come the White Sox, Reds and Padres ... three more of the worst teams anywhere at a combined 37-70. Not to belabor that point, since it's to the Pirates' credit that they've taken care of business in such situations all season, but these are the ones you've got to take to stay in contention.
After that?
Try Cardinals, Cubs, Cardinals again, Dodgers, Cubs again and the National League-best Diamondbacks.
Take the ones sitting in front of you.
• As I typed that, naturally, all three of the White Sox, Reds and Padres just won their respective Sunday games, all by a 5-3 score. Because baseball.
• Moment of the day for me came well after it was done, when J-Hay was riding his scooter through the lower bowl in a rush to say goodbye to Cutch, but stopped upon spotting Moran's mom — sporting a pink shirt and holding a bright bouquet of roses — to shout out "Happy Mother's Day!"
She smiled, so hey, I'm not really sure it was his mom!
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY