There’s something happening around the Pirates that goes beyond defying expectations. An actual air of excitement surrounds a team that seemed to be all but ticketed for another last-place finish after losing six of their first seven games.
The Pirates climbed above .500 for the first time since opening day with a 2-1 victory against the first-place Royals on Tuesday night at PNC Park.
It was an unexpected clash of, if not Titans, two teams that have been playing really good ball recently. The Pirates have won seven of their past 10 games to get to 12-11 on the season. While the Royals not only lead their division, but entered Tuesday night with the best win percentage in baseball.
These two teams have done everything in their power to turn expectations on their heads in the early going. Combine the Pirates’ and Royals’ expected playoff chances from the preseason, according to FanGraphs, and they still wouldn’t be given 10 percent odds.
“That was a good ballgame,” Derek Shelton said. “That’s a good club.”
There’s still that lingering, bleak sense surrounding the expected end result this team might still face. But even within the dreariness, there’s a strange optimism. Questions about when they might mercifully sell off their most talented players have changed in tone to, “What top prospects could they get for the guys that are tearing it up, right now?”
Bryan Reynolds laid out the blueprint for this team’s success after Sunday’s 6-2 win against the Twins in Minneapolis: Good defense, timely hitting and steady pitching. And they followed that plan to defeat what's become the mighty, mighty Royals.
BATS KNOW THEIR PLACE
This feeling of excitement has shifted the overall negative, large-scale expectation to a night-by-night notion that something, anything is eventually going to break their way.
Coming down to the wire against the best team in baseball, the Pirates got over the hump thanks to an unlikely source: Wilmer Difo.
Just one week ago, it was an appropriate time to think Difo’s days were numbered with the club. Ke’Bryan Hayes was thought to be on the verge of a return. The Anthony Alford-Dustin Fowler experiment was still in effect. And the roster construction did not favor the veteran utility man with one hit in his previous 13 at-bats.
But he got a chance as a pinch hitter against Scott Barlow in the seventh inning Tuesday night and delivered a well-placed blooper into right to score Jacob Stallings from third.
“My mindset going up to the box was putting the ball in play,” Difo recalled. “I was just able to square the ball pretty well enough to get the ball in play, and coming off the box, I just had a feeling that it was going to be able to hit the floor and not be catchable.”
It was Difo’s third hit in 17 prior trips to the plate and his first RBI since a two-run, pinch hit homer on April 11. As unlikely as it was that Difo would be the guy to come through in that spot, the setup of the run was just as unexpected.
No, not Kevin Newman hitting a soft ground ball for an infield hit. That could have been forecasted before first pitch. But Jacob Stallings and his third-percentile sprint speed taking off for second on a hit and run was a legitimate surprise.
Sure, Newman has decent bat-to-ball skills, and he showed them with a slapper to the quickly unoccupied hole left by the shortstop. And Royals backstop Salvador Perez might not have been at 100 percent after getting pulled from Monday’s game with discomfort in the thumb on his throwing hand.
But it was still a pretty significant gamble in an important spot. And one that paid off handsomely for Shelton.
“We have to figure out ways to create run-scoring opportunities. We’ve talked numerous times about how we’re not just going to sit and bang with people, and we did a really nice job executing tonight,” Shelton said. “And again, sometimes you don’t have to hit the ball hard, you just have to put the ball in play. Our guys did a nice job of that.”
On top of that, Colin Moran and Reynolds have been firing on all cylinders at the plate and continued that trend Tuesday. Moran had three hits, including the first RBI-knock to score Reynolds in the opening inning, and the only extra-base hit with a two-out double in the eighth. His 16 RBIs put him in a tie with Arizona’s David Peralta for the most among cleanup hitters so far this season.
IT AIN'T PRETTY, BUT ...
Prior to the activation of waiver claim Ka’ai Tom in the afternoon before Tuesday’s game, the Pirates rolled with two natural outfielders on the roster in the four games since Fowler was designated for assignment.
Since then there’s been something of an adventure with Reynolds in center and Phillip Evans, a natural infielder, in left. Shelton has moved on to call Evans a true utility man with skills on both the dirt and in the grass, but he really doesn’t have much choice.
But although they haven’t looked all that comfortable out there, they’re still making plays.
“They have been consistent,” Shelton said. “We played well again defensively.”
Evans had a ball hit directly at him that spun him like a top as he drifted back toward the left field fence. But he was able to corral it and get the out. Reynolds had a long way to go, and a large obstacle in Gregory Polanco to avoid, to make a sliding catch and potentially save a run in the fourth.
It’s been risky to continue to call on those two guys in those spots in the outfield -- Evans being more of a potential issue than Reynolds. But the strategy hasn’t badly hindered the streak of now eight games and 74 innings in which the Pirates have committed just one error after collecting eight through the first seven games.
“I think we’re very confident. We’ve been playing really good defense behind ‘em,” Moran said about the Pirates’ stingy pitching of late. “They’ve pitched really well. Those are two things, at least defensively, for sure, it keeps you in there all the time. The way they’ve been pitching, we feel like if we can get ahead early, we like our chances.”
PITCHING IS EVERYTHING
Don’t look now -- actually yes, look now -- but the Pirates’ bullpen has become one of the best in baseball. Their 3.29 reliever ERA is second-best in the National League and eighth-lowest overall. Since their 1-6 start, that unit has produced a 1.80 ERA, second only to the Mariners’ 0.84 mark over that span.
“We’ve done a nice job and Justin Meccage has done a really nice job in terms of every day, the information they get, how they’re going to execute, why they’re going to go about it -- they’re doing it,” Shelton said. “And these guys are stepping into roles some of them have never had before and are able to execute pitches.”
Even if his manager won’t call him a closer, Richard Rodriguez has been the best closer in baseball so far on this young season. Opposing batters are 1-for-33 against the right-hander after he recorded his fourth save of the season with a perfect ninth inning Tuesday, in which he exclusively threw fastballs. Rodriguez last surrendered a run on Aug. 30 of last year, a 21-appearance streak spanning just as many innings.
“Playing behind [Rodriguez] is awesome. He pounds the zone. Gets a lot of late swings. Seems like he’s always calm out there, no matter what the situation is,” Moran said. “He’s very effective. It’s a lot of fun to give him the ball with the lead.”
Duane Underwood Jr. and Sam Howard also chipped in scoreless innings of relief of Tyler Anderson. The wily veteran southpaw Anderson developed a brilliant counter punch against right-handed batters in his previous start, and followed that strategy to six one-run innings against the Royals.
The crafty Anderson flipped the advantage in his favor, working his deepest outing of the season by keeping the club with the best win percentage in baseball off balance with a steady diet of changeups. Simple as that.
“We threw a lot more changeups tonight,” Anderson said. “It was better today.”
This strategy was one with which he found success last week as well during a 3-2 win against the Tigers and a lineup full of right-handed and switch hitters. He’s rattled off three consecutive starts in which he’s allowed just four total runs over 16 ⅓ innings.
But his starts against the Royals and Tigers had the changeup usage in common. Anderson went with the change on 34 of his 90 pitches (38 percent) on Tuesday night against a team that left struggling, yet potent lefty bat, Andrew Benintendi, on the bench,, and 31 of his 90 offerings (34 percent) last Wednesday.
“I thought his changeup was really good. When you have an all right-handed lineup, the ability to execute your changeup [is big],” Shelton said. “He really did a nice job executing the gameplan. Stalls did a really nice job working along with him. It was really effective.”
Through his first five turns in the rotation, Anderson and JT Brubaker have been a stabilizing presence for what’s otherwise the Pirates’ most volatile group. Wednesday’s starter Mitch Keller has a 7.16 ERA and veteran right-hander Trevor Cahill has pitched to a 7.11 through their first four starts. Opening day starter Chad Kuhl brought his 6.32 ERA onto the injured list with him last weekend.
As ugly as those particular numbers look, it’s still important to take into perspective that it’s only April. Cahill is still attempting to shrink the 15.75 ERA that he was stuck with after his stinker of a debut in Cincinnati at the start of the month. Keller has shown a full Jekyll and Hyde-type difference in performance based on his ability to throw strikes. And Kuhl will miss some of the immediate future with right shoulder discomfort.
But Anderson, by throwing junk and messing with opposing batters’ rhythm and timing with a funky leg kick, has been the veteran starter that the Pirates truly needed.
THE ESSENTIALS
Box score
Video Highlights
Scoreboard
Standings
Statistics
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
Adam Frazier, 2B
Phillip Evans, LF
Bryan Reynolds, CF
Colin Moran, 1B
Erik Gonzalez, 3B
Jacob Stallings, C
Gregory Polanco, RF
Kevin Newman, SS
Tyler Anderson, P
And for Mike Matheny's Royals:
Whit Merrifield, 2B
Carlos Santana, 1B
Salvador Perez, C
Jorge Soler, RF
Hunter Dozier, LF
Michael A. Taylor, CF
Hanser Alberto, 3B
Nicky Lopez, SS
Jakob Junis, P
THE SCHEDULE
The Pirates host the Royals for the final time Wednesday before getting another day off Thursday. They'll travel to Kansas City for the last two games of the home-and-home series at the end of May. First pitch Wednesday is scheduled for 6:35 p.m. as Mitch Keller (1-2, 7.16 ERA) is scheduled to take on lefty Mike Minor (2-1, 4.64 ERA).
THE CONTENT
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