Ever since their hirings and introduction last November and December, one of the most common talking points for general manager Ben Cherington and manager Derek Shelton has been the need to get better everyday.
Now 15-36 with nine games to play, there is plenty of room for improvement going forward.
Shelton is an optimistic guy. Errors and miscues in a game aren’t just mistakes, but “teachable moments” or “teaching points.”
And those points can stack up quickly.
“We got a lot of teachable moments from tonight,” Shelton said after Friday’s loss in the second game of the doubleheader. “We got a bunch of teachable moments from the sixth inning. We have to address them.”
That is almost an understatement. The Pirates entered the sixth inning of their seven inning contest ahead 2-1, but ended up losing, 7-2, after three fielding errors and a mental mistake from Gregory Polanco, who threw home on a sacrifice fly, allowing both runners to move up a base and take away a potential double play.
The Pirates had multiple chances to exit the inning tied or at least within a run, but the mistakes continued to pile up. In Polanco’s case, Shelton saw his reaction as soon as the play was done, realizing he had made a mistake.
Shelton said the stress of their league-worst record can result in mistakes like that.
“We have to remember we don't have to try to do too much, because a lot of mental errors come from when you try to eliminate problems or do too much,” Shelton said Saturday. “I think we made two mental errors last night just by trying to do too much."
So the coaching is able to identify teaching moments. How do they determine how to go through that process? What can be addressed with a quick conversation, what needs a sit down with a coach in the office, what needs some video work or more practice, and what might need to be a project?
“Those are the conversations we have among the staff,” Shelton said. “What things can we hit tonight, and what's going to be a longer term discussion or bigger discussion, and then how we're going to attack it. And I think for the second one of those, we have to formulate a plan of how we're going to attack it.
“And there may be different factors involved, not just baseball stuff. Maybe strength stuff or mental conditioning things, are things that we need to put together and formulate a plan for. And there's certain things that we have to address nightly because they came up."
