Fire everyone.
If needed, run the firing through a statistical simulator 10,000 times, if only so that all 10,000 instances illustrate that it's the right thing to do.
If anyone missed it over the weekend, it's more than worth the rewind to hear Neal Huntington's analytical assessment of these face-planting Pirates on his weekly radio show on 93.7 The Fan: "If you run 10,000 simulations on teams that are supposed to be a .500 team, eight times would you run into a 4-24 stretch, according to FanGraphs. So a less than 1 percent chance of what we just experienced."
This came from the mouth of the National League's most tenured general manager.
In a controlled setting, mind you, being interviewed by a team employee.
This, my friends, is how they talk. This is how they think. They see it as brilliance when they succeed, even in spurts, and they see it as lousy luck when they don't. I've been writing this for years, but it's only now resonating more broadly, thanks to this team losing pretty much every game it plays anymore, not least of which was this 13-0 humiliation at the Nationals' hands Monday night at PNC Park.
Really want to know how it happened?
OK, without wasting any words ...
That was all off Trevor Williams. All in the totality of the two innings he'd last. Adam Eaton, then Matt Adams, then Trea Turner. Ten batters were up, and seven had plated. It was 8-0 when Williams left. Montana DuRapau then took the ball and served up three more. And three hours later, the torment ended.
Had enough?
We'll see if Bob Nutting has.
• For anyone still keeping score in any form, Williams' eight runs -- six earned -- came on six hits, half of them home runs, as well as three walks, a wild pitch and two epic foul balls that were hit harder than any of them. Even the bottom of the Washington order was hacking away.
This is now the new norm for Williams, whose sizzling second half of 2018 is long since buried. The season ERA is now at 5.65. In June, it was 8.49. In July, it was 6.26. And in his past three starts this month, he's been bludgeoned for 19 runs in a dozen innings.
And yet, the same guy had a 3.18 ERA in 2018, as well as a 3.33 ERA through the May 16 start in San Diego that cost him a month on the injury list with a strained right side.
Coincidence?
I put that to Williams afterward, and he responded, for the first time, with acknowledgement that it might have thrown him off course:
I put the same question to Clint Hurdle, and he initially replied, "I can't give you anything on that. I can't give you anything."
I pressed on: What is it, then? Because this is no longer the same pitcher.
"No, it's not," Hurdle came back. "And we've seen much more of this than we would like or he would like. He'll be the first one to tell you. He's out there trying to make pitches, and it's not happening. I mean ... 64 pitches to get six outs. The command has been challenging. And the secondary pitches really haven't played much to support. ... We'll continue to search."
Ow.
Loose translation: Williams can no longer pinpoint his fastball, which accounted for 9 in 10 pitches last season. And his breaking offerings are basically not much at all.
This is one tough dude. But he's facing one tough climb.
• For anyone still stretching for any kind of peripheral excuses, the Pirates' pitching now has a 5.05 ERA, second-worst only to the Rockies, who play a mile up in the sky. And this particular game marked the -- sit down for this -- 22nd time on the season they've given up double-digit runs.
That's one of every five games.
• For anyone still seeking out individual bright spots: Bryan Reynolds singled. He went 1 for 3 with a walk, and he's batting .326, still top five in the National League batting race. He's slid somewhat of late, 2 for 19 in his past five games, but that's also as close as he's come to a slump since disembarking from the bus.
“He’s not as lucky right now,” Hurdle observed on that subject. “He’s hitting balls hard and he’s hitting them at people. It’s a combination.”
Yep. Lasered one to center for a long out in the sixth, then let out a visible laugh as he rounded first.
• For anyone still tabulating injuries, Elias Diaz was lifted after the fourth inning, when the Nationals' Victor Robles lost his bat and had it smack Diaz's mask. He was being treated after the game with no further detail. If Diaz goes to the IL, he'll be the 26th different player on the roster to do so.
• For anyone still looking ahead to 2020 with hope: Had a good talk with Chad Kuhl before the game. He's up from Bradenton to continue his side sessions here and sees himself -- as he should -- as part of the next rotation.
• For anyone still wondering who ponies up to watch these things, the paid tickets in circulation count was 11,284, with an odd chunk of that make up of Washington fans and other weirdness, and Matt Sunday and I discuss:
• For anyone still keeping score for the collective, that's now 51-73 overall, 15.5 games off the Central lead, seven behind the fourth-place Reds, 4.5 games in front of the league-worst Marlins and, never to be overlooked, 7-28 since the All-Star break.
The latter represents the worst sustained stretch of baseball in Pittsburgh since 1952, and the .200 winning percentage, if it persists will be the second-worst after the break in Major League Baseball's modern era. Only the 1943 Philadelphia Athletics finished lower at .197 with a 15-61 record.
Bad luck. That’s all this is.
• All of them. Every. Last. One.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THE INJURIES
• Richard Rodriguez (10-day IL, shoulder)
• Gregory Polanco (10-day IL, shoulder)
• Francisco Cervelli (60-day IL, concussion)
• Lonnie Chisenhall (60-day IL, chose wisely)
Here's the most recent full report.
THE SCHEDULE
Chris Archer's shown much stronger stuff of late, with a better swing-and-miss rate than at any point since the trade. But the guy he'll face Tuesday, Stephen Strasburg, is OK at that, too, with 185 Ks in 158 innings, as well as a 1.08 WHIP. First pitch is 7:05 p.m. I'll be back for that one, too.
THE COVERAGE
All our baseball content, including Mound Visit by Jason Rollison, Indy Watch by Matt Welch, and Altoona Watch by Jarrod Prugar, can be found on our Pirates page.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Pirates vs. Nationals, PNC Park, Aug. 19, 2019 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS