LOS ANGELES -- In all 132 years of the Pittsburgh Baseball Club's existence, from Babe Adams to Bob Friend to Bob 'Round Tripper' Kipper to this very Tuesday evening at Dodger Stadium, no pitcher had given up five home runs in a single game.
Crazy, right?
Yeah, Ivan Nova had a few different words after becoming the first.
"It's not fun when you're giving up that many homers," he'd say at his stall after the Pirates absorbed yet another bludgeoning by the Dodgers' quarter-billion-dollar bats, this by an 8-3 count on six total home runs. "Sometimes, you give up that many runs and you don't feel that bad. But when you give up five home runs ... it's just the worst. It's something that's not acceptable."
It's the worst, all right. Historically so.
And given that Nova's first two batters took him deep, it only seemed like all five actually occurred this quickly:
Those were by Joc Pederson on Nova's first pitch, by Max Muncy on Nova's next pitch that wasn't a ball, by Muncy again in the third inning, by Chris Taylor as part of a his single-shy-of-a-cycle performance, by Yasmani Grandal and ... and ... am I forgetting anyone?
Oh, right: Purely for comedic purposes, Dovydas Neverauskas' first pitch upon relieving Nova was crushed by Enrique Hernandez.
Can't make this stuff up.
That left Los Angeles' formidable lineup with 25 runs, 10 home runs and six other extra-base hits through the first two games of this series that mercifully concludes Wednesday, with the Pirates nudging yet another newbie to the mound to make his big-league starting debut in emergency option Clay Holmes.
Small wonder Clint Hurdle sounded this way afterward:
Funny thing was, as Hurdle stated, the Pirates were actually plenty competitive in the early going despite facing Clayton Kershaw and were tied, 2-2, after matching sequences in the second and fourth that saw Elias Diaz double and David Freese single him in. There was some good defense in there, too, maybe even a bit of a vibe.
Didn't matter. Nova kept coughing up moonshots.
I asked him how frustrating that must have been:
There isn't a whole lot to dissect on this front, to be honest, because Nova had been quite good of late, with a 1.57 ERA over four starts since coming off the disabled list in early June for a sprained finger. He did allow a career-high 29 home runs in 2017, but that figure was 12 through the current season before this.
He missed spots with his fastball, plain and simple, and the rest -- he tried an insane total of 30 curveballs to compensate -- didn't matter. The way the Dodgers are swinging, they're hanging on for the heat, then hacking away. Hurdle described their approach as some of the most "ferocious" he's witnessed in a lifetime of baseball, and he's not prone to that kind of hype.
But there's also this, from the manager: "Unfortunately, we've put a lot of balls in the middle-middle part of the plate that they're not missing. They're not missing fastballs, for sure."
Bad pitches meet big-time hitting. This is what happens.
TAP ABOVE FOR BOXSCORE, STANDINGS, VIDEO• In the finale Wednesday, the Pirates could achieve a fresh low at six games under .500. They're 40-45 overall, 14-28 since that magical peak in May at 26-17 ... and all that's really been established on this trip is old news: They can handle lousy teams, taking two of three in both New York and San Diego, but their pitching gets manhandled by the good ones.
• The Reds are only 3 1/2 back, if anyone's curious. If these Pirates should finish last, man, I'm telling you, heads are going to roll. (Cue laugh track.)
• For fuller, fairer context on Neverauskas, recalled earlier in the day and thrust into duty, he got five of his six outs by strikeout. Although he did walk two guys, threw only 27 of his 50 pitches for strikes and ... never mind. I tried.
• Just for fun, I'll occasionally engage in an argument about the concept of clutch, mostly because it's still so vastly overblown.
In this game, for example, the Pirates were clutch as could be, 2 for 2 with runners in scoring position. (Meaning, of course, Freese batting after a Diaz double.) Meanwhile, the Dodgers were complete clutch dogs, going 2 for 6 in such situations and stranding an absurd 14 runners on base!
Oh, and the Dodgers won, 8-3, for the simple reason that they had more men reach.
For the season, the Pirates rank 10th in the majors in clutch-iness, both with a .258 average and a .762 OPS. They've even got the No. 1 individual guy in the majors in clutch-iness, Josh Harrison, at 14 for 32 for a .438 average with runners in scoring position. But overall, it doesn't amount to much, as they've now dropped to 18th in the majors in runs.
• The Pirates have been on the receiving end of a lot of badness out here, but their own receiving end, Diaz, is embracing every bit of his chance to replace injured Francisco Cervelli for these past 11 games: Both of his doubles Tuesday came off Kershaw ...
... and went 2 for 4 to raise his season slashes to .303/.347/.523 with seven home runs and 22 RBIs in 47 games. Just on this nine-game trip that winds up here Wednesday night, he's 10 for 28 with two home runs, five doubles and seven RBIs.
I asked about all the action he's seeing, and he lit up like it was the Fourth rather than the third.
"I love it," he replied. "I'm very happy when I'm playing."
• If Cervelli gets traded -- and he's the Pirates' highest-paid player at $10.5 million and very much on the block -- it would appear there's an heir in waiting:
• Give it up for Freese.
No, I actually mean that: Another team should give it up for Freese, who's also on the block and who had an excellent night of his own, going 3 for 3 with two RBI singles, a home run -- accounting for all of the Pirates' offense -- as well as a defensive charging-gloving-throwing-getting gem in the fourth.
I've gotten the sense that the fan base has occasionally lumped him in with Sean Rodriguez's troubles. That's terribly unfair. Freese can still play, and he's got the .267/.329/.420 to show for it., along with four home runs and 23 RBIs that rank him seventh on the team despite only 131 at-bats.
"Very good night for David," Hurdle responded when I brought that up, specifically referencing the RBI singles against Kershaw. "He's always seen Kershaw well. The at-bats were clean, crisp, the balls were well-struck, off a breaking ball and a fastball. And then the home run was a first-pitch heater from a right-hander."
That was Yimi Garcia in the seventh.
"Yeah, a real strong night for David."
• Speaking of strong ... if you've never heard of Muncy, even though he's already got 20 home runs this season for the Dodgers: He's 27 years old. He spent all of last season in Class AAA. Before that, in parts of two seasons with the Athletics, he had five total home runs over 215 at-bats. For his full-minor-league career, he hit 62 home runs over 1,974 at-bats.
And now, just like that, he's got 20 in 185 at-bats to lead his big-league team.
• This seems like a good place to stop typing.