Pirates, Nova slammed again and again

CINCINNATI -- Ivan Nova has the requisite size, age, pedigree and experience. Staff "ace" might be a bit of a stretch, but the 31-year-old is as close to one as the Pirates have, at least for the time being.

Thing is, he's not pitching like one. Not even close to it.

Thursday afternoon's 5-4 loss to the last-place Reds at Great American Ball Park was Nova's fourth loss in his last five outings, dropping him to 2-5 on the season.

"You don't want to be the guy that's pitching bad every five days, no matter if you're the veteran guy on the team," he said afterward. "You don't want to be pitching bad every five days. It's not about service time or anything like that. You want to go out there and compete and do my best for the team. I'm not helping right now."

The mounting losses have followed a familiar script for Nova. Basically, it's little things adding up to big problems.

That pretty much summed up Nova's fatal third inning when he gave up four runs, all of them coming on Eugenio Suarez's grand slam.

But Nova's problems began four batters earlier when he handed a leadoff walk to Luis Castillo. If he doesn't walk Cincinnati's pitcher, who knows what happens?

Jesse Winker followed with a walk. After Nova was able to get Jose Peraza to pop up a bunt back to the mound, Scooter Gennett dribbled a ball down the first base line.  Nova fielded the ball cleanly but threw high to first baseman David Freese to load the bases for Suarez, whom he had struck out in the first inning:

Nova's fielding — as well as his pitching — has been an issue of late. It was his third error of the season and second in as many games. He explained it this way:

"The hard part is that he's coming in the best shape he's ever been in," an exasperated Clint Hurdle said. "There's a guy that in the past that, maybe in the American League, you didn't have to be as athletic ... I don't know. That part of his game has hurt him. It didn't hurt him before ... and he's in better athletic shape. You're just going to keep trying to work on it. He's aware of it, he's trying to get better."

If Nova doesn't make that throwing error, the game could have been much different.

Instead, on a 2-2 pitch, Nova hung an 81.5 mph curveball that Suarez was able to golf down the left field line for his third career grand slam. (It was the second slam allowed by the Pirates in the series after Gennett hit one off Jameson Taillon on Tuesday.):

"The breaking ball, we've seen it better at times, much better," Hurdle said of Nova's pitch to Suarez. "I think there was a time we were talking about finishing like a bowling ball, finishing hard. He was bouncing them for swings and misses. Just not happening as consistently as we've seen in the past."

In the fifth, Winker connected on Nova's 94 mph fastball, a 2-1 pitch, that drifted into the visitor's bullpen in left center field. It was Winker's first home run of the season in 143 plate appearances.

On Thursday, Nova's line read like this: 5.1 innings, five runs (four earned), four strikeouts and two walks. He is now sporting a bloated 4.96 ERA, while allowing 39 runs (34 earned) in 61.2 innings this season.

Nova, who is signed through 2019, part of a three-year, $26 million contract, is well aware that he's not been very good  but he says he'll continue to do the work.

"It's not easy when you're losing games," he said. "I'm just trying to find a way to win games. I've been in that position before and been able to bounce back. Nothing I can do now. I'm a hard worker and I'm going to keep working hard and get out of this."

Hurdle sounded confident that his de facto ace will bounce back.

"He's doing everything he can to get himself in a better place," the manager said. "This is a guy when he joined us, it looked easy and that's the challenge up here. There are times when it comes back hard and you have to keep fighting and keep working.

"You have to trust him and keep giving him the ball and see if he can work through it."