ST. LOUIS -- "What he's doing right now ..." Bryan Reynolds began before drawing a breath. "It's special."
Yeah, sounds about right.
Because all Josh Bell did on this brisk Mother's Day at Busch Stadium was go 4 for 4 with a three-run home run, a two-run double, a career-high five RBIs, a walk and, arguably best of all, a big bear hug from mom Myrtle, who'd been leaping and cheering in the box seats throughout.
Believe it. Three rousing Ws in a row after that 17-4 massacre in the series opener.
"This guy ..." Clint Hurdle began, seemingly stumbling for adjectives the way Reynolds was. "He's in the middle of everything right now. He's carrying us."
No question. And that's why 'this guy' might be the problem.
Stay with me here. There's a solvent point, I swear.
Because when this group punches back like this, when it keeps pushing forth through injury after injury, occasional ugly loss after occasional ugly loss, and when one player in particular is putting forth most of the haymakers ... how could anyone dismiss or even downplay what's to come this summer?
Or, for that matter, what the front office could or should do to help?
Sure, that 20-17 record is riddled with holes. They've had 19 players on the injured list, most in Major League Baseball, and more than half are still stuck there. They're 4-12 against opponents with a winning record. Their minus-35 run differential would be worst in the National League if not for the miserable 10-29 Marlins.
And yet, no statistics, even in this advanced age, ever supersede the standings themselves, and these persistent Pirates are all of three games out of first place in the Central Division.
It's starting to feel like more than just occasional fun, you know?
I brought this up with Bell:
There's a lot of that in this clubhouse. Players talk about 'playing for each other,' as Bell reiterates above, and they're commonly referring to those who are hurt. Some have gone so far as to pick an injured teammate and identify him as the one they're playing for. It's an innocent intangible and nothing more, but that's generally where winning originates in team sports.
"Our club just continues to stay in the moment," Hurdle would say. "Eliminate distractions. Don't worry about the outside or other numbers and data. It’s not about run differential or anything like that. We’ve been whacked a few times, and we know it. But it’s about winning. And we've been doing that."
Not looking ahead at all or looking forward to reinforcements, inside or outside?
"Not at all."
Bell's right at the forefront, obviously.
The two-run double came in the first, part of the Pirates bursting to a 3-0 lead ...
... and, after Steven Brault made a predictably massive mess and handed the Cardinals six runs, it was Bell's three-run laser beam in the seventh inning that made it 6-6:
Seriously, did that thing arc more than 25 feet above the ground?
"I honestly don't know," Bell told me. "I do know I hit that ball hard."
Try 111.8 mph.
It helped that Mike Shildt, the Cardinals' manager, didn't have his top lefty, Andrew Miller, available and was forced to go with righty John Brebbia. The third pitch was a 93-mph, up-and-over, not-really-fastball -- or, as Brebbia put it, “When you make bad pitches to guys who are taking good swings, it’s not going to be good for the pitcher” -- and Bell did what he's been doing to those for a while now: He's got a 12-game hitting streak, the longest active one in the National League, through which he's 20 for 49, a .408 clip with 16 RBIs. For the season, he's at .319 with 10 home runs, 34 RBIs and, most impressive by far, a 1.048 OPS that's fourth-best in the majors.
Oh, and this: No one is hitting the ball harder. Anywhere. His average exit velocity of 94.9 is No. 1 in the majors among players with at least 100 plate appearances. Second is the Indians' Carlos Santana at 94.1 mph.
That, my friends, is MVP material, albeit in early May.
The Pirates weren't done, of course, after Bell's shot. Adam Frazier's pinch-hit two-run double later in the inning brought the lead for good at 8-6:
Some prescient managing by Hurdle contributed. The previous inning, with the Pirates down three, one out, nobody on and the pitcher's spot up, he didn't waste any of his bench bats and sent up Joe Musgrove to pinch-hit. That's how Frazier remained available for a bigger situation and, earlier, Melky Cabrera, too, who scored on Frazier's double.
"Just hope," Hurdle dismissed when asked about his decision. "This is about Bell."
It actually is.
He proceeded to tell the tale of suggesting to Bell beforehand that he should “do something special for Myrtle."
Bell’s reply: “Yeah, I got this."
Hurdle: "It turned out he had it.”
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THE GOOD
Only one of the Pirates' first five batters made an out, and that out might have been the heart of that three-run outburst.
Starling Marte led off with a single, and Reynolds followed with a flyout to left. Didn't advance the runner or anything. Just made an out and sat back down. Except Reynolds somehow managed to work St. Louis starter Dakota Hudson into throwing a baseball, uh, 17 times.
There were 11 pitches in the actual at-bat, plus six pickoff attempts to first as Marte had been taking a healthy lead. Through that, Reynolds stayed steady and fouled off one, two, three, four, five, six, seven pitches.
Small wonder, then, that Gregory Polanco followed with a single and then Bell's double -- both drilled -- for the first two runs.
"Huge for us," Hurdle said of Reynolds' at-bat. "We let him know that, too."
I confirmed this:
Reynolds hasn't had the best results since opening his career with that 11-game hitting streak, going 1 for 18, but his at-bats, his approaches continue to be as cool, as professional as his debut. Also, he made two fine catches in left field, including one at the fence in the ninth inning that drew an appreciative tip of the cap from Francisco Liriano.
Steven Brault watches the Cardinals' Paul Goldschmidt round third after his home run. - APTHE BAD
Brault was Brault, for lack of a better way to word it, flopping away an instant three-run lead by giving up six runs on nine hits, two walks, a hit batter, a wild pitch -- and at least four flings that were saved by Cervelli -- as well as two laser-beam home runs by Paul Goldschmidt and Jose Martinez.
Look at the velocity and location on these pitches:
My God, it's amazing gravity ever reclaimed those.
We won't talk about Nick Kingham climbing the hill Monday night in Phoenix.
THE OTHER SIDE
Every year the experts count out the Cardinals is another year the experts are wrong, which is why no one should have been surprised by their 18-win April. In May, though, they're 3-9, mostly because of a stagnant offense, having been held to one or zero runs in half those games.
Well, at least when they aren't facing Brault, Clay Holmes, Dovydas Neverauskas and their ilk. And sure enough, once Brault was out of this one, they laid nothing but eggs against Montana DuRapau, newly arrived Chris Stratton, Richard Rodriguez and Liriano.
"We have accountability to end results,” Shildt told reporters on the St. Louis side. “We get it, I get it. It's ultimately my responsibility to do the best we can for this club. I can confidently tell you this is a group that I have zero doubt about. It is an ebb and flow of the season."
THE DATA
• The Pirates are 8-3 since their eight-game losing streak ended April 30.
• Marte's single to open the game extended his more modest hitting streak to seven games, in which he's 9 for 26, a .346 clip.
• Cervelli had dragged a 2-for-20 slump into this one, but he went 3 for 4 with a hit-by-pitch.
• The crowd of 48,555 was the largest in the history of the new Busch Stadium, thanks to some recently expanded seating.
• It's never overcomplicated: The Pirates are 15-8 when their starter goes six-plus innings, 5-9 when he doesn't. Oh, wait ...
THE INJURIES
• Chris Archer, right-hander, is on the 10-day IL with right thumb inflammation, but he'll rejoin the rotation and start Wednesday in Phoenix, the team announced Sunday.
• Corey Dickerson, outfielder, is on the 10-day IL with a strained right shoulder. He's hitting and throwing.
• Lonnie Chisenhall, outfielder, is on the 10-day IL with a broken right hand. He's hitting.
• Keone Kela, right-hander, is on the 10-day injured list with right shoulder inflammation. He isn't throwing.
• Jameson Taillon, right-hander, is on the 10-day IL with a strained right forearm flexor tendon. He will not throw until early June.
• Jacob Stallings, catcher, is on the 10-day IL with a cervical neck strain. He's on a rehab assignment with Indianapolis.
• Nick Burdi, relief pitcher, out with right elbow/biceps pain caused by a nerve problem, is on the 60-day IL.
• Erik Gonzalez, shortstop, is on the 60-day IL with a fractured right clavicle. He won't return until at least mid-July.
THE SCHEDULE
It's off to Phoenix for three. Kingham will face the lefty Robbie Ray in the opener Monday, 9:40 p.m. Eastern time. The clubhouse will open to reporters at 6:10 p.m., with Hurdle speaking shortly thereafter. John Perrotto is there.
THE COVERAGE
All of our expanded baseball coverage, including Mound Visit by Jason Rollison, Indy Watch by Matt Welch and Altoona Watch by Jarrod Prugar, can be found on our team page.