"They believe they are in the hunt," Clint Hurdle was beaming on this steaming Sunday afternoon at PNC Park, "and they continue to fight.”
No one could argue it.
Check that: No one should argue it.
Forget whatever anyone on the outside -- myself included -- expected when pitchers and catchers reported to Bradenton. Forget all those lopsided losses. Forget all 24 different players to appear on Major League Baseball's injury list. Heck, go the distance and forget Dovydas Neverauskas and all the other Neverauskases brought up for the big-league slaughter.
Forget everything but this: Two. Point. Five.
That's the Maddon-be-damned separation:
That's it. Two. Point. Five.
We're past the point where expressing hope for these peculiar, precocious Pirates is about optimism. It's not even an opinion. It's nothing more than math.
Oh, and all this:
That, of course, was Bryan Reynolds' three-run blast, followed by Felipe Vazquez's double-play save, followed by the latest round of hops and high-fives for the 6-5 fending-off of the Brewers on Sunday at PNC Park. That also was a 14th victory in the past 21 games going into the All-Star break, a climb within one game of .500 and the closest proximity to first place since May 7.
You know, back before all the starting pitchers began plunging off figurative cliffs.
This is real. That's all I've got to add to the above. Josh Bell's 27 home runs, 84 RBIs and sudden superstardom is real. Bryan Reynolds' .342 average, eighth-best by a rookie at the break in major-league history, is real. The combined .335 average between Reynolds and Kevin Newman, the highest by any rookie teammates at the break in baseball history, is real. Colin Moran rounding second and heading for third, as he impressively pulled off Sunday, is real. Elias Diaz's maturity into a legit starting catcher is real. Adam Frazier's 18 hits already this month is ... man, that's surreal.
My goodness, the team's cumulative .271 batting average, highest in the National League, is real, too. A season hasn't ended that way since 1991.
The pitching ... eh, go get some more. Maybe they will. But some of what's already in the fold has found at least a little equilibrium, so it's hardly a start-from-scratch proposition.
You'd better believe the clawing, the character, all of that's real.
"We believe in each other. We support each other," Bell told me Sunday. "But we've been doing that all along."
No doubt. Only now it's got a real feel for the rest of us.
Two. Point. Five.
• Again, maybe they will add. But maybe they won't.
It's seldom fair to parse every syllable a sports executive speaks, but there's no harm in poking around for clues. So here's some of what Neal Huntington told us in the press box shortly before first pitch Sunday, followed by some poking:
“The club just continues to show amazing resiliency and fight. As the general manager, you want to honor that. We have to climb over some teams to get to the division top, have to climb over some teams to get into the wild card. We don’t take that for granted, that you have a chance at the postseason."
That's acknowledging the obvious, but there's also huge couching. Huntington's always done that. He thinks analytically, and he spits it out the same way. He paints the challenge, willfully or otherwise, as more than just the 2.5 at hand.
“We absolutely want to honor this group. We had one of the best starting rotations in baseball the first month. Didn’t really hit all that well. From May 1, we’ve been among the best offenses in the National League. If we could put those two clubs together, we could do some damage.”
Eek. The hypothetical melding of different months is awkward. The analytical gear went out of whack here.
As for all that "honoring" going on ...
“You honor that by looking to see if there are opportunities to add to it. You honor that by respecting where we are and maybe not making a move that might have some future value but takes from your existing club. Just respect their resiliency, their hard work and their fire.”
Yikes. OK, never mind about the whole thing. He veered almost instantly from adding to this team to, uh, not dismantling it?
"I’m 0 for 3 in the last three trade deadlines in terms of providing a boost to the major-league club. That’s the challenge we have — that balance between now, next year and the future.”
My God. Highest of marks for candor, even if he unnecessarily undercuts his own terrific trade to acquire Felipe Vazquez. But here, too, there's more couching than the second floor at IKEA.
• While on the subject: One of this front office's most flawed approaches is the one that dictates they sit and wait to see if that summer's team deserves help. It's nonsensical and counterproductive to the extreme. When the needs are as simple as a run-of-the-mill starter and a run-of-the-mill reliever, just go get them when they're needed.
"Honor" the spirit of contending without pre-conditions.
• Most of the pitching that's found at least a little equilibrium has come from Richard Rodriguez and Michael Feliz.
Those two couldn't get outs the first two months if they'd been spotted two strikes and a blindfold for the batter, and both were demoted to Indy. But both have been so good of late: Rodriguez rolls into the break with 17 consecutive scoreless appearances, just one blemish in 21 appearances since his May 27 recall. And Feliz has been scored upon once in his past 10 appearances, with opponents batting .172.
I asked Huntington if he could assign credit for that:
• Really hope no fan of the team missed my talk with Rodriguez the other day. One of my favorites -- in any sport -- all year.
• More credit where due: Luis Escobar, promoted from Indianapolis over the weekend, is the latest from Rene Gayo's Latin American pipeline to reach Pittsburgh, the fifth from Colombian scout -- and actual Bogota bank president -- Orlando Covo. Escobar was signed in 2012 for a $150,000 bonus after being seen as a 16-year-old on a sandlot in Cartagena, Colombia. He was deemed a third baseman, but he couldn't hit. Gayo and Covo liked his arm, put him on a mound, and he was throwing 93 mph within a year.
Total Gayo players on the current roster: 6
Total internal draft picks: 6
If you don't know of the disparity in money/manpower invested in those two endeavors, you might not want to know. Knock Bob Nutting for a bunch of things, but the Pirates have outspent every team in the majors on the draft over the past decade.
• No one can convince me Kyle Crick isn't banged up.
First, Hurdle strikingly avoids using him for five days, not least of which was in the latest Neverauskas debacle Friday night. Then, Sunday, Crick was tagged for two more runs that nearly ended this first half on a much lower note until Vazquez bailed him out. And talk about streaks: Crick's now given up at least a hit in nine consecutive appearances, a frightening figure for a one-inning guy.
The break might serve him well.
• More and more, there are assessments that the Central's a bad division. That's a common, lazy assessment anytime it's spotted that one or two teams aren't standing out. And in this instance, it's totally untrue.
Only 4.5 games separate the top from the bottom, the Cubs from the Reds. That's extraordinary. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, there hasn't been a tighter division at the break since the American League West in 2006, and that was with only four teams. As Joe Maddon worded it while in town this seek, the Central's "a cannibalistic kind of division," where everyone's beating up on each other. That's evident in the intra-division records, where only the Brewers are faring well within the Central, at 24-18. The Pirates are next-best at 18-18, and all the rest are within three games of .500 in that category.
• I could see the Cubs crumbling, but I could also see the Brewers rising up. And adding. And pulling away from the pack. For all of Chicago's spending, Milwaukee's been the Central's biggest underachiever. That won't hold. There's too much talent, too smart a manager in Craig Counsell, too passionate an owner in Mark Attanasio.
• Good for Francisco Cervelli. That's all I have to say to that. He's a fine baseball player, and he's a finer man who lives life to its fullest. Can't do that without health.
• No, wait, one more thing, but also about that: The Pirates, and Huntington in particular, have done everything right by this player and this person. Much as I'll criticize Huntington's work -- fair game in this business -- the next negative thought I have of him as a human will be the first.
• Enjoy the break. All kinds of coverage to come from John Perrotto in Cleveland these next couple days.
