Suzy Selliman, a Fox Chapel resident and senior VP at a big tech company, won't be hard to satisfy this summer.
Not in the baseball sense.
Truth be told, she seemed to be genuinely enjoying her experience while seated in PNC Park's Section 303 on this summery, semi-historic Thursday afternoon that welcomed the Pirates back for their 135h home opener and, far more momentously, safely allowed fans like Suzy back inside for the first time in 557 days.
"I’m not expecting to have a winning season," she was telling me while the game was still going. "I'm not even sure I think our won-lost ratio will be better than last year, which was a disaster. I hope I'm wrong. And I'll celebrate every win and even every run. I really just love this game and I do love this team."
Then, as now occurs invariably in our city when the topic turns to the Pirates, she brought up Bob Nutting.
"It doesn’t mean that I'm not critical of ownership or management or even players," she continued. "But to harbor the hate and resentment that some of these people do for something that doesn't impact their lives directly in any way, it's ridiculous. There are lots of bigger things to worry about in the world than how much money Nutting is pocketing."
You know, I've spent a lot of time inside PNC Park, beginning with the day it was christened 20 years ago, and I'd like to think I've kept a pulse on the people who come here.
Suzy is the people who come here. She knows and loves the game and the team, she embraces the chances to show that support in person, and she doesn't see all things Pirates through the singular prism of their Nutting-ness.
Oh, and she'll be back for more. Yeah, even after that 4-2 flat-liner against the Cubs that brought a sixth straight loss.
But I'll say this, too, not on Suzy's behalf but harkening back to that broader pulse: The people who come here, as well as those who support this team from afar, have a right to expect a lot more than what's been witnessed in this first week.
____________________
Look, I'm not focused on wins and losses any more than Suzy is. I haven't lost my mind. I understand and appreciate everything about Ben Cherington's approach to building up the Pirates' system with high-ceiling talent. It's the smartest approach anyone's taken with this franchise in my lifetime.
But it's only an approach, and it's got to be followed with execution. It's got to be all through the organization, too. Including Pittsburgh. It's got to happen with Quinn Priester and Nick Gonzales, just as it's got to happen with Mitch Keller and Bryan Reynolds. Because the more accomplished the talent across all levels, the greater the capital Cherington's got to make more acquisitions of more talent.
The principal goal of 2021, according to all concerned, is "getting better," collectively but also individually. We've heard that phrase countless times from Cherington, from Derek Shelton, from his various coaches, from the players themselves.
Tell me, my friends: Who's getting better?
Who got better in 2020, when literally every hitter except maybe Erik Gonzalez either regressed or nosedived? When literally every pitcher either regressed or nosedived? When every other facet -- defense, baserunning, situational awareness -- stayed flat?
For that matter, who's visibly getting better a week into this season, reminding that Grapefruit ball doesn't count?
Can't say Ke'Bryan Hayes, because he started out Ted Williams, and only an injury could cool him off. He can't get better.
The rest?
Anyone?
I'm with Suzy, in that I can take 1-6. Or 10-60. Or heck, 1-161, since that's still on the table.
But I'm not inclined to shrug off 2021 because, oh, hey, it's unreasonable to improve players on a $48 million payroll. That's lazy. It's also ignoring that most of the key players in this category, to repeat, have either regressed or nosedived. The talent's definitely there within those few. It just hasn't been brought out or brought back out.
Reynolds, to me, is the bellwether.
In 2019, he was among Major League Baseball's most productive left fielders, and I'm not limiting that to rookies. He slashed .314/.377/.503 with 16 home runs and 68 RBIs in 539 plate appearances. He hit from both sides, he hit to all fields, and he hit all year long without so much as a week's slump. That was legit. That was talent on display.
He then out-nosedived everyone on the roster in 2020 at .189/.275/.357 and, after a modestly encouraging spring, is now 6 for 26 with two walks, which is also ... modestly encouraging.
Maybe he'll come all the way back. Maybe he won't. But I'll confidently predict this: He won't come back without the same aggressiveness, the same confidence he exhibited back in 2019. He's shown some of that in the early going -- he's swung at 80.6% of pitches in the strike zone, per FanGraphs -- but let's have even more of that and a lot less of his penchant for taking close pitches and hoping umps bail him out. Because they won't, as we've seen.
This problem's across the board, by the way, and it's bugged me like no other.
There's an adage in the Dominican Republic that's shared with young baseball players: 'You can't walk your way off the island.' And it very much applies here. Because, while it would take a fool in this analytical age to doubt the worth of working a walk, it would take an identical fool to not realize that the only way to get better at hitting is to swing the bleeping bat.
Of all the pitches these Pirates have seen, as a whole, 19.1% have been called strikes, fourth-most in the majors. That's obscene for a lineup of this experience level. These guys aren't the Yankees or Dodgers, who can afford to engage in sophisticated cat-and-mouse scenarios deep into counts, then blister the one golden pitch they set up.
These guys need to swing. They need to hit. And that needs to be instilled.
Examples:
• In the second inning, Dustin Fowler came up with two aboard, two outs and his pitcher, Tyler Anderson, on deck. That's a setting that demands being aggressive. Instead, he watched five pitches go by, loaded the bases with his walk, then watched Anderson strike out.
In fairness, all four balls were well out of the zone, but a 3-0 fastball wasn't:
MLB.com
What kind of a hitter wouldn't be licking the lips at the thought of that pitch in that scenario?
Answer: The kind who wasn't aware -- or didn't care -- that his pitcher was on deck.
Alternate answer: The kind I wouldn't want on my roster.
• In the third, Adam Frazier walked, Kevin Newman squirted a single, and Reynolds lined out to center. Colin Moran still had a chance to salvage something from the inning, but he stood and watched four pitches go by him before striking out. Phillip Evans popped out to end it.
• In the eighth, the virtues of patience were evident with the Cubs' Dan Winkler walking Evans, Gregory Polanco and Jacob Stallings to load the bases with one out. Chicago turned to Craig Kimbrel to face our man Fowler, who astoundingly took the first three pitches he saw -- two for strikes -- then whiffed. Wilmer Difo whiffed, too, to end it, but at least he had his bat off the shoulder.
It takes a ton to get Shelton to call out anyone or anything, but he had no problem in this instance.
"We need contact," he'd say. "We had two situations. We had the first-and-third situation and the bases-loaded situation, and we didn’t get contact. That’s where we’ve got to get better. We’ve got to get contact there, make them at least field the ball. Even if we hit into a double play in both situations, we’re making something happen. That’s one of the areas we have to hit on.”
I asked Shelton if he's seeing enough aggressiveness from his group.
"I think we could be more on time," he came right back. "We're getting caught in-between. And so to fully answer, that would be no, because when you get caught in-between you don't take the aggressive swings. I think that's been a little bit of an issue."
One of several.
____________________
Singling out the hitting might seem strange in light of the pitching posting a 6.83 ERA that's second-worst in the majors. But that's the nature of Cherington's build, where some players matter more than others, and most of those in Pittsburgh are hitters.
To reprise the theme, if Reynolds and Newman regain their rookie forms, if Keller finds some courage, if a couple other pleasant surprises emerge ... man, I'll bet this front office ecstatically swallows 100 losses in that context.
The onus falls ultimately on Shelton as the field manager at the top tier, but my own focus is on the third-year hitting coach, Rick Eckstein, a holdover from Clint Hurdle's staff, and the second-year pitching coach Oscar Marin. All of civilization gets a mulligan on 2020, but it won't last forever. Eckstein was praised by his players enough to keep him. Marin's been hailed as if he's ushering the art of pitching into some new age. Real results have to follow.
The players carry some of that, as well. Reynolds and Newman are no dummies. They know what they did in 2019, and they know what they need to do now. And if Keller isn't lying to himself, he knows he needs to throw strikes and damn the consequences.
I asked Shelton, who'd waited as long to share the place with fans as vice versa, his thoughts on some of the vocal fan support here, including loud 'LET'S GO BUCS!' chants through those aforementioned rally attempts.
His answer might've been telling.
"It was great to be back in this ballpark with fans," he replied. "I think our fans realize that we're building something here and that it's going to be a journey. I really appreciate their support, not only today but how they've been throughout. It’s outstanding. I cannot tell you, personally, how much I appreciate how our fans have been. Like we said, it's going to be a journey. At times, it could be fun. But at the end, it's going to be fun."
How about some reciprocation, then?
Suzy gets what's going on. Give her a reason to cheer right now, beyond that loving loyalty.
