Anderson’s debut was a lot better than his linescore taken in Chicago (Pirates)

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Adam Frazier slides into third base with a triple in the fifth inning Saturday in Chicago.

CHICAGO -- While it already seems like the Pirates’ starting pitching might be their Achilles' heel in 2021, it doesn’t bring upon happy thoughts to imagine this team without Tyler Anderson.

For five innings in Saturday’s 5-1 loss to the Cubs at Wrigley Field, Anderson provided a formidable challenge to a powerful lineup. Sure, he allowed three runs on five hits and a pair of walks, but there were only three hits that were actually struck well, and he was bitten by factors outside of his control.

“Obviously room for improvement there,” Anderson said of his Pirates debut. “I thought for the most part, command was OK except for walks. Just not a good job of getting myself in a situation with runners on a lot and having a bit with runners on a lot and that's not a good recipe for success.”

This is what’s going to have to pass as an effective outing for the Pirates’ starters this season. On a day when the club is without its best hitter for most of the contest, it can’t be expected that the offense can make up a ton of runs. 

On Saturday, the bats were greatly silenced by Jake Arrieta and a trio of Cubs’ relievers, but it’s a reasonable assessment to say that Anderson kept them in the game.

Anderson struck out seven Cubs, a mark he’s only reached three times in his past 20 outings dating back to his 2018 season with the Rockies. He mostly relied on his cutter, changeup and four-seam fastball, which was used as an out pitch on five of his seven strikeouts, including two whiffs of the opposing pitcher, Arrieta.

“Facing a pitcher helps,” Anderson said wryly when explaining how his heater was so effective as a strikeout pitch. “I think just moving the ball around a little bit and maybe they're looking for changeups.”

He really got a ton of swing and miss from the Cubs, with 22 whiffs accounting for 91 of his pitches. That's the most swings and misses any Pirates pitcher has gotten since Francisco Liriano on Sept. 26, 2015.

The whiff rate on his changeup (36 percent) was right around where it’s always been in his career, but his fastball and cutter were swung through 17 times, which is almost twice as often as usual.

“I thought he executed some pitches,” Derek Shelton said. “I thought he did a good job. Going back and forth, maintaining. ... It was a good outing for him.”

The Cubs had three hits against Anderson with an exit velocity greater than 100 mph. Kris Bryant struck out on a four-seamer through the top of the zone in the opening inning, then caught hold of one about 18 inches lower in the third and crushed it 404 feet to dead center. Anderson started Bryant off with a pair of changeups, then tried to sneak a fastball by the former MVP and catch him off-guard. Even if he had the right idea, the location of the pitch was basically on a tee for Bryant. 

“I kind of sped up my delivery a little bit,” Anderson said. “And he's not really a guy who that's good with because his stance is so wide and short with such little movement that it kind of gets him into a better position.”

The other two well-struck hits both came in the two-run second on pitches Anderson barely threw. Javier Baez scalded a curveball 109 mph into left and Jason Heyward pulled one 102.4 mph into right. But pitch execution was not at the root of Anderson’s struggles in that inning.

The 6-foot-2 southpaw employs a funky leg kick in his delivery that effectively allows him to mess with a hitter’s timing. But put a runner on base, and have that runner be as fast as Baez, and that timing mechanism becomes a liability. Like plenty of lefties, Anderson’s pick off move can be tricky for a runner on first, but give a guy just about any jump and it’s going to be tough to prevent stolen bases when Anderson actually goes to the mound.

“He’s got a good move,” Shelton said. “Javy picked two of the right pitches after there was action.”

Anderson often uses the slide step anyway but after Baez got a read on his move he had to mix it in more often. The Cubs didn’t steal another base, but by then the damage was done. Baez scored on Jake Marisnick's softly hit single to right. 

The blooper probably would have been tracked down without much effort by second baseman Adam Frazier if the infield weren’t drawn in.

David Bote then plated Marisnick on a sacrifice fly, which probably should have ended the inning if not for the aggressive defensive positioning earlier in the frame.

The Pirates have Mitch Keller, JT Brubaker and Trevor Cahill getting the start in the next three games. This is not a group with much depth, especially with Steven Brault sidelined until June. They’ll need every member of the rotation to pitch with more consistency than they’ve collectively done in their careers. Despite the results, Anderson’s outing Saturday is a close-to-accurate blueprint for what that might look like.

MORE FROM THIS GAME:

• It wasn’t just Anderson’s Pirates debut, as right-handers Luis Oviedo and Wil Crowe also made their first appearances with the club. Oviedo’s was also his major league debut. The 21-year-old struck out the final batter he faced in a perfect eighth inning. It was his first professional game stateside since his final start with Class A Lake County in 2019.

“It was a huge leap, a great leap for me,” Oviedo said through club interpreter Mike Gonzalez. “The ways that I was trying to train myself and equip myself mentally and physically for an opportunity like this, I’m just grateful that everything worked out for me. But this is something that I’ve definitely been preparing for.”

Crowe did not fare as well and was lifted after needing 28 pitches to record two outs in the seventh. The right-hander struck out two batters, but was really wild, issuing a pair of walks and making two wild pitches before giving up a run on Baez’s second single.

“It was encouraging that he was able to come back,” Shelton said. “He struggled with his changeup command. His changeup is a good pitch. So the fact that he was able to come back and execute it a couple times … then finish the outing with the punchout, I thought was encouraging.”

Michael Feliz cleaned up Crowe’s mess in his season debut with a strikeout of Marisnick to end the inning. Clay Holmes seemed to be able to carry over the success he had in his outing Thursday until he left a 3-1 sinker over the heart of the plate to Heyward, who deposited it into the right field bleachers 423 feet away.

• The Pirates did not get a runner on base against Andrew Chafin, Brandon Workman and Craig Kimbrel to end the game. After Bryan Reynolds’ lead-off single off Arrieta in the sixth, the next 12 Pirates went down in order, eight via strikeout. 

Kevin Newman delivered the Pirates’ only run, scoring an injured Ke’Bryan Hayes from third on a first-inning chopper up the middle. The Buccos had just six hits from six different players, including a two-out triple from Frazier in the fifth. After getting 20 at-bats with runners in scoring position Thursday, the Pirates were 1-for-3 in those situations in Saturday’s loss.

• In addition to the unfortunate defensive positioning in the second, the Pirates’ defense did Anderson no favors in his outing. Both Frazier and Colin Moran made throwing errors in the fourth. Those mistakes did not leads to a run, but Anderson needed 20 pitches to complete an inning which should have required only half of that workload. The Pirates have already committed four errors this season.

THE ESSENTIALS

Box score
Video highlights
Scoreboard
Standings
Statistics

THE LINEUPS

Shelton's card:

Adam Frazier, 2B
Ke’Bryan Hayes, 3B
Bryan Reynolds, LF
Colin Moran, 1B
Kevin Newman, SS
Gregory Polanco, RF
Jacob Stallings, C
Dustin Fowler, CF
Tyler Anderson, P

And for David Ross' Cubs:

Willson Contreras, C
Kris Bryant, 3B
Anthony Rizzo, 1B
Javier Baez, SS
Joc Pederson
, LF
Jake Marisnick, CF
Jason Heyward
, RF
David Bote, 2B
Jake Arrieta, P

THE SCHEDULE

The series concludes with a rubber match at Wrigley Field on Sunday. Mitch Keller celebrates his 25th birthday on the mound against right-hander Zach Davies at 2:20 p.m. ET. After the series finale, the Pirates head to Cincinnati for a three-game set with the Reds scheduled to begin Monday. Alex Stumpf will have you covered from there.

THE CONTENT

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