As Steven Brault talked to the media in Great American Ball Park’s makeshift visitor Zoom call room, two points kept reemerging over the seven minute conversation.
The first was the Pirates starters were not going deep into games. The staff had just two quality starts all season. He hadn’t had many opportunities to go deep into games, starting the season as one half of a piggyback with Chad Kuhl as he came back from a spring training left shoulder strain.
Not that it was an excuse for him.
“We all want to go deep in games,” Brault said then. “Not going deep in games sucks. Like, it's the worst. You feel like you failed.”
The second was he felt he wasn’t attacking hitters enough. Brault believes he does his best work when he relies on his athleticism and gets out of his head.
So looking to solve both problems, he decided to just turn his brain off. He didn’t even bother to check the scouting report on the Cardinals before he went out to pitch Thursday at PNC Park.
Whatever catcher Jacob Stallings called, he was going to throw. No questions asked.
“We decided before the game that I wasn’t going to shake,” Brault said. “I wasn’t going to think. I was just going to be a freaking throwing machine.”
The result was the best pitched game of his career, tossing a two-hit complete game to beat the Cardinals, 5-1, and snap the Pirates’ season-long eight game losing streak.
Brault walked two struck out eight and retired his last 16 batters faced. It was his first complete game, and the first by any Pirates pitcher since Jameson Taillon on Aug. 7, 2018.
Stallings might have inspired Brault to do that when the two talked in the dugout after his last start against the Royals on Sept. 11. Brault made lower half mechanical changes this year, but after that game, he said he thought his problem was both mental and mechanical.
Eventually, Brault came to conclusion just to give Stallings complete control of the game. He had just trusted his catcher before and had outings where he goes with what the catcher wants, but he was very blunt about it this time.
“I was not worried,” Stallings said, putting just enough emphasis and pause on the verb to match the comedic uncertainty his face instinctively went to. “I was interested to see how it would play out.
“He doesn't like a whole lot of information anyway. We'll talk more about him than hitters, typically. That's just how he is. I guess we'll probably do the same thing next time."
So this might not be the strategy long term. But for one night?
“He just kept putting it down and I wasn’t shaking,” Brault said. “So it was Stalls. It wasn’t me. Thanks, Stalls.”
The pitch that guided Brault through the night was not his fastball, but rather the changeup. When he had success in 2019, he usually relied on his heater, but the offspeed pitch has become a more reliable option for him this season.
But with his back foot slider not working the way Stallings wanted it to, he called for the changeup early and often. Brault and Stallings both saw how it was playing well against a lineup with seven right-handed hitters in it, so the lefty kept going back to it. Cardinals hitters would wind up swinging at it 16 times on the night. 10 were for whiffs, one was a foul and the five put in play were all outs.
“The changeup has the same spin as the two-seam, so it comes out looking like a two-seam fastball,” Stallings said, describing what that pitch looked like coming across the plate. “You see two-seam spin and it starts to slow down, and then it's a changeup and it's got a lot of depth to it. It was definitely on tonight."
Stallings kept calling it late, including in the ninth to Paul DeJong. After falling behind 2-0 to him, Brault went to it four straight times and got the strikeout.
“He knew that he wasn’t going to get too much rope just because of the pitch count,” Derek Shelton said. “The confidence that he had to throw that at that time showed that his stuff was really good tonight.”
Brault finished with 110 pitches, and was at 95 after eight. Shelton didn’t need to be convinced by Brault to let him stay in the game, because the two didn’t talk. Brault was having conversations with Stallings, pitching coach Oscar Marin and Joe Musgrove, and trying to stay away from the guy who could take him out of the game.
“I purposely never went anywhere near Shelty, just so I didn't tempt him to even think about wanting to take me out,” Brault said.
Brault closed the night by striking out Paul Goldschmidt swinging, setting off a series of hugs with his coaches and teammates, the first of which came from Stallings.
“That's the most excited I've been on a baseball field in quite a while,” Stallings said. “Almost felt like I threw a complete game. It was fun. Team needed it.”
• After falling behind early, the Pirates struck for four runs in the fourth, with three of them coming on this two-out laser beam from Gregory Polanco:
Polanco also doubled and drove two fly balls to the warning track.
"It feels good to hit the ball," Polanco said about the homer. "It’s been a struggle. It’s been hard for me to hit the ball lately – I mean, the whole season, obviously. Anytime I catch one and I can hit the ball on the barrel, it feels really good, man."
The source of those struggles is still not known by Polanco or the coaching staff, though Polanco believes his head had been moving too quickly out of the zone.
But despite his results, Shelton reaffirmed this week that Polanco is staying in the lineup. Polanco didn't know Shelton was asked about his starter status, let alone hear Shelton's answer, but he was touched when he found out.
"I love that man, man," Polanco said. "He gives me so much confidence and he every day says, ‘Hey, you’re going to be good, you’re going to be good, keep working hard.’ He sees how hard I’m working no matter what and says, ‘Hey, you’re OK, you’re going to be OK.’ I’m just happy, man, to be here, for real.
"I’m going to keep working no matter what. Like I always say, no matter what result, no matter how struggling I am, I’m going to keep working. I won’t drop my head. I’m going to keep my head up and keep fighting every at-bat, every pitch and every game I’ll be there.”
• Everyone in the Pirates' lineup reached base at least once, but Josh Bell only walked, snapping his hitting streak at 10 games.
• A complete game from the starter, contributions from everyone on offense, no errors in the field, some good base running decisions...
"It was the most well-played game we’ve had all year long in terms of everything," Shelton said.
• DK was at the game, too. Here’s his Grind about the drop-off on offense from the team's top hitters.
Cole Tucker is on the injured list with a concussion, jeopardizing the rest of his season. I have a short piece on that here.
• Factoid of the night: The last Pirates left-hander to throw a complete game with two hits allowed or fewer was Paul Maholm on Apr. 27, 2008.