"We played some good ball out there."
This was Derek Shelton. And this was Monday afternoon, a few hours before his Pirates put forth some more good ball with a four-run rally to undo the Diamondbacks, 6-5, at PNC Park, so his reference actually was to the long trip through Los Angeles and St. Louis.
I wasn't out there, so I hadn't seen the man in a week. He'd walked over to exchange a pleasantry during batting practice, I'd asked him only semi-kiddingly how he was holding up -- hard course for 100 losses and all that -- and he came right back with that line above.
Some good ball.
It didn't all go well, of course. The tying run was stranded in scoring position twice against the billion-dollar Dodgers. And the sweep attempt against the Cardinals was thwarted by -- who else? -- Adam Wainwright in the finale. But it's fair to assess that there was some for-real good ball played along the way.
That's not what struck me, though. Rather, it was this: This guy's still thinking about winning games. He's still got the same energy level I could've detected on Day 1 in Bradenton. All his lights are green. All systems go. And all his focus, then as now, is with one eye on the future but somehow both on the present.
Look, I'm not candy-coating: These Pirates are 45-80 and would need to fire off at 18-19 the rest of the way to avoid that century mark. And that's got about as much chance of occurring as Bob Nutting claiming our city's mayoral election this fall ... as a write-in candidate.
But Ben Cherington's broader plan, which must seem so much smarter and more sensible to people in Greensboro and Altoona than it does here, very much comes with a Pittsburgh component for these final few weeks, and I could probably best summarize it with three bullet-point objectives:
1. Get better
2. Learn as much as possible
3. Win some freaking games
I get that the last one's easily met with derision, especially among those drive-by types who only casually -- or outright cynically -- follow the team. You know, the ones who freely talk about tanking and the like, as if any draft in this unpredictable sport would ever be worth such an exercise.
But part of my job's getting to know the humans behind the process, and I'll stand up and attest that these men, Cherington and Shelton, come across as competitive as anyone I cover. They want to win. They wanted to win this game. They'll want to win the next. The separator, necessitated by Major League Baseball's sickeningly imbalanced economics, is that they've got no choice but to wait to do the real winning. They've got to build. From the bottom. A year at a time. A prospect at a time.
So yeah, getting better's a great place to start. At all levels, including Pittsburgh, even if it's with players who might not be part of that real winning.
Exhibit A is this beautiful baseball:
I know, I know, Kevin Newman doesn't matter. He's 28 years old, he'll be a great-grandfather before all those Greensboro Grasshoppers arrive on the North Shore, and worst of all, he wasn't able to hit a ball beyond the pitcher's mound until the past month.
But did he get better defensively?
He was always reliable, yet almost never remarkable.
I posed the question to Shelton afterward, and his response was something.
"Yes, I think his range has improved, and I think his arm strength has improved," he began. "And it's a credit to him. We sent him home last offseason with a very strict set of ... I won't say orders, but goals for what he needed to get better at, and he took it and ran with it. We're seeing the benefits of that throughout the season."
The principal benefit might be, to use that term again, the process. What worked for Newman might, however unrealistically, set himself up for more of a future here than anyone can currently envision. But the process that went into making him better defensively, that's more overarching.
Want to hear something nuts?
For all the global fuss over Will Craig's groundbreaking butchery earlier this summer, no team in the majors has committed fewer errors than the Pirates' 35 errors dating back to May 9. Their overall .986 fielding percentage is sixth-best in the majors. Bryan Reynolds and Ke'Bryan Hayes rank atop their respective positions for National League outs above average, and Newman's sixth. Jacob Stallings leads all catchers in defensive runs saved. And the catchers as a whole haven't committed a passed ball in 167 games, an all-time big-league record.
Funny, but no one complains much about fundamentals anymore, do they?
This is foundational stuff. This is needed not just in Pittsburgh but all through the system, where the priority's gone from 'Hoka Hey' log-lifting, tire-carrying and other faux-military silliness to actual baseball. The prospects watching the current Pirates can't exactly be beaming with pride at the results, but they can and do see the fundamentals. Meaning videos of performances like this one by Newman get shown and shared all the way down to Dominican ball.
This is also a time for management to learn. Or continue learning.
There hasn't been much consistency on this front, and I'll be the first to criticize planting Gregory Polanco in right field day after day, including this one right after it'd become public that he was placed on waivers. I realize there isn't exactly a rush to replace him, but it's poor optics externally and maybe even internally. He's done precious little to deserve being a fixture here or anywhere.
At other spots, though, studies have been the norm. It took maybe a dozen DFAs to turn up Ben Gamel. Other outside additions, both young and older, have rolled through at every position except catcher. In all, with Michael Chavis' recall from Class AAA Indianapolis before this game, the roster's now seen 57 players, two more than the franchise record.
I asked Cherington on this day to explain this mindset.
"Focusing on young player acquisition such as the draft, international, trades and development are obvious," he replied. "But good teams have players that come from everywhere. And as you know players can change at any point in a career, maybe even more now than in past."
Exhibit B, then, is this blast:
That's Yoshi Tsutsugo. Big-time bust with the Dodgers and Rays this season after coming over from Japan, and all he's done here in a week is go 6 for 18 with five extra-base hits and three home runs -- all in the past four games -- including that rope over the Clemente Wall in the seventh that closed Arizona's lead to 5-3 and really lit the rally.
"We knew the power was there," Shelton would say. "He's showing it."
Just a little.
He's 29, and he's already displayed that he can't defend -- like, at all -- at first base or in the outfield. But here again, if anyone can unlock all that pop on any permanent basis, he could be a bench piece, a trade chip back to an American League team, or a designated hitter right here if that makes it to the National League next season.
Bottom line: He becomes an asset.
JOE SARGENT / GETTY
A fan greets Yoshi Tsutsugo behind the first base dugout.
There'll be additional fishing for assets, too, which will at least partly explain -- and justify, in my mind -- why two promising but struggling prospects, Hoy Park and Rodolfo Castro, were both optioned out yesterday to clear space for Chavis and a returning Anthony Alford. Those two also are on the wrong side of the prospect border at 26, and the time's now to see if they'd be worth further investment.
For us, it's not as entertaining as watching youth, as I'd advocated for purely baseball reasons three weeks ago from Milwaukee, but better to not bury prospects' confidence and far better to test older players now than next spring or summer. All that's needed for the W is a single Tsutsugo to emerge.
And nothing's better than Ws.
Exhibit C, then, is this boring bouncer:
Not much there, huh?
Hayes came up with bases loaded in the eighth, the score 5-5, and all he'd add was that infield chopper for a fielder's choice that pushed Newman across the plate.
But step back and look again.
This was Hayes' fifth plate appearance on night where he saw -- sit down for this -- 31 total pitches. On this one alone, he saw 10, pushing poor Jake Faria, following a 3-0 count, to pump strike after strike after strike.
I asked Hayes if his approach altered at all after all he needed was another ball for the RBI.
"I'm sure, early in the count, he was trying to make his best pitch, which is probably a heater," he replied. "He had a little bit of cut, so trying to get me to roll over for a ground-ball double play. But I wasn't trying to do too much, just trying to see something, hit it through the middle or through the right side."
Wait, there's more.
Earlier, Hayes, who's already had a couple of misadventures in missing bases this year, appeared as if he might've missed second while retracing his steps on a flyout. The Diamondbacks challenged and lost, and Hayes confirmed he'd gotten a piece of it.
In the same breath, he added that first base coach Tarrik Brock -- correctly -- reminded him after that inning that he never needed to pass second in that situation. As Hayes recalled the lesson, "In the future, on a ball like that, that he's pretty much guaranteed to catch, stay on the first base side."
In the fifth, the Diamondbacks went ahead, 5-1, on a three-run single that wouldn't have occurred had Hayes simply stepped on third for a forceout just beforehand. A roller up the line looked like it'd go foul, Hayes went for it, it chipped part of the base, and trouble ensued. Hayes visibly thought it was foul but still could've -- and should've -- taken the force to be sure.
"I saw it curving toward the foul line," he'd say, "so I was trying to get in front of the bag and grab it foul."
Another lesson. And, as ever with this kid, he was unfazed to the finish, which was made all the more fulfilling by another newbie, lefty Anthony Banda, wiping out the Arizona eighth with nothing but Ks, then David Bednar, the Butler County boy, recording his first save on home soil, then beaming afterward, "I always dreamed of doing that here."
JOE SARGENT / GETTY
Jacob Stallings congratulates David Bednar after his second save, his first at PNC Park.
I loved this from Hayes, too, when asked about Newman's gems: "He's been really good all year over there, and he made a few good plays for us tonight to help us get the W."
He was thinking about the W, too. The fifth occasion this season in which this talent-starved team overcame a four-run deficit to win. Only the Giants, Angels and Royals have more.
I asked Shelton how, in a setting where he's legitimately got to be having a tough time attaching names to faces, where so many individual trajectories might be at cross-purposes, he's been able to stress anything on a collective level.
"You know, sometimes, when you get an opportunity, you have to take a step forward or you'll take a step back," he replied. "That's what we have over these last 40 games, is the challenge to do it. And it's been good to see them step into that."
My friends, there are no bad work days that begin in this setting ...
DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS
The Pirates take batting practice Monday afternoon at PNC Park.
... so shed no tears for whatever befalls this group in September. Instead, just know that -- at least from this perspective -- there's a palpably healthy machinery humming underneath.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
1. Ben Gamel, LF
2. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
3. Bryan Reynolds, CF
4. Colin Moran, 1B
5. Jacob Stallings, C
6. Gregory Polanco, RF
7. Michael Chavis, 2B
8. Kevin Newman, SS
9. Wil Crowe, RHP
And for Torey Lovullo's Diamondbacks:
1. Josh Rojas, 2B
2. Ketel Marte, CF
3. Asdrúbal Cabrera, 3B
4. Carson Kelly, C
5. David Peralta, LF
6. Christian Walker, 1B
7. Daulton Varsho, RF
8. Nick Ahmed, SS
9. Humberto Mejia, RHP
THE SYSTEM
• Indianapolis
• Altoona
• Greensboro
• Bradenton
THE SCHEDULE
The series with the Snakes continues Tuesday, 7:05 p.m., here at PNC Park. JT Brubaker (4-13, 5.49) will try to stop giving up so many home runs -- 15 in his past eight starts -- and he'll take on Madison Bumgarner (7-7, 4.06). Alex Stumpf will have that.
THE CONTENT
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