"No timing. Nothing. If I had answers ..."
This was the bummer version of Bryan Reynolds. I've been around it before, and it's bona fide stuff. This young man's been banging baseballs since he was bounced from the womb and, for all that Johnny Cash chill with which he's been blessed, he'll go bonkers if the ball's not going the way he wants.
So when I'd approached the No. 10 stall in the clubhouse after the Pirates' 10-5 clubbing of the Rockies on this Wednesday afternoon at PNC Park, I knew immediately what I'd get with the very first wince.
And I knew why: The .216 average. The nine RBIs. The 11 extra-base hits in 148 at-bats. All that.
And I also knew that his playing a pivotal role in this outcome -- double, walk, winning run out of the leadoff spot -- wouldn't make a dent.
"I'm trying to see the ball, then get to it at the right time," Reynolds would elaborate when I stubbornly stuck to him. "I just need to keep working at it."
But ... the double?
"Sometimes it happens. Not other times."
But ... the modest spike in production of late -- .276 over the past eight games -- that included that inside-the-park home run over the weekend?
"We'll see."
And it was at this point that Ben Gamel, standing nearby, came to the rescue.
"How 'bout those big ABs we got out of B-Rey today?" he chimed in playfully. "Huge for us today."
Yeah, I'd play along, and there was his first-to-third hustle in the seventh inning ...
... that set the stage for Gamel's winning single that made it 6-5.
"Just doing my job," Reynolds would relent with a small smile.
Hey, that's a lot more than I'd managed.
____________________
This wasn't much, to be kind, the team achievement at hand. Two of three from Colorado. A couple sighs of relief after having the collective brains blown out over the weekend by the Cardinals, not least of which was that 18-4 emasculation Sunday.
But to be blunt here, I'd like to think, maybe naively, that a lesson was learned at the management level: Pittsburgh matters now.
As in right bleeping now.
And as a result, it's imperative that management, beginning with Ben Cherington, applies a much, much harder focus on the core product than what we've seen since his arrival in late 2019.
What's that mean?
Well, start with this: Winning in Pittsburgh matters now.
No, I'm not about to say something stupid here. I'm not talking contending or even pretending. These Pirates are 18-25 and, if anything, their minus-83 run differential, worst in Major League Baseball, strongly suggests the record should be much worse.
At the same time, I'm plenty comfortable proposing that any front office in its third full year should be seeing results that are better rather than worse at the only level that matters.
It's asking for progress.
It's asking for potential.
It's asking for ... hope.
Cherington and I had a long talk on this topic back in Bradenton a couple months ago, about what could reasonably be expected into 2022. The general gist of it was across-the-board improvement and, benign as they might sound, I was wholly on board. Still am. No one could've thought there'd be some sudden eruption this summer following 101 losses, no matter how many prospects might make their way up. But anyone could've -- no, should've -- thought there'd be something more than what'd already been seen.
Hasn't happened, to be kind. This team's been worse in every meaningful way. Can't pitch. Can't hit. Can't even defend, which was the one thing it did quite well last season. It's all gone backward.
There's never a single, sweeping reason for something like that in team sports. But if I had to try to attach just one, it'd be that the Pittsburgh roster needed to be taken far more seriously entering this season.
Losing begets losing. Failure begets failure. And if the core product was just left to wither, while waiting out the prospect cavalry from Greensboro or Altoona or wherever, the rot was going to work its way from the head down.
That, my friends, is what we've witnessed this year.
And that, ideally, is what Cherington, Derek Shelton and everyone else had hit them in the worst way this past weekend.
How else to explain the perpetually jovial, even-keeled Shelton finally lighting up regarding their effort Sunday?
How else to explain the perpetually flat-lined Cherington meeting with reporters here Tuesday in an attempt to clarify some terribly tone-deaf remarks over the weekend applauding the Pirates' "deployment" of lineups and pitchers this season, whatever the hell that meant?
How else to explain ... the comparatively better baseball we just saw over the past three days?
Even the most gifted individual athletes tend not to excel in isolation. Not for long, anyway. They need support. They need encouragement. They need the nurturing, the execution and the fulfillment that comes only from optimal outcomes. And in a team sport, that's winning.
I asked Shelton after this win, one in which his players battled back from a 4-0 deficit, how much of what followed -- three-run home runs by both Jack Suwinski and Josh VanMeter, authoritative relief pitching, awesome defense, aggressive baserunning -- was fed by whatever positivity had just preceded each play, and his answer was telling:
"It's unbelievable," he'd reply. "I think it carries over, not only offensively but defensively. I mean, highlight the play that Rudy made in the ninth going all the way to his backhand side, and you watch his reaction on it."
He means this gem by Rodolfo Castro in the ninth:
"I mean, it's like a little kid playing in his backyard. He was excited. He got to a ball it and made the play, but that I mean, that's kind of the infectious thing we're talking about. Positivity is important, and positivity's not easy. You know, sometimes when you get your ass handed to you, it's not easy to be positive. But I do give our group credit: With the exception of one game, they’ve stayed positive. Their efforts' been really good."
I'd agree with that. I only wish I could say the same for Cherington and Shelton throughout the season. And going all the way to the top, since that's where the Bucs stop, Bob Nutting.
There's no rational cause for Oneil Cruz and Roansy Contreras to have spent the time they have with Class AAA Indianapolis this season. None whatsoever. We're well past the line where the team retains an extra season before free agency before either. We're now just down to money, obstinance, an inability to evaluate/project readiness, or some terrifying mix of all three.
Contreras is finally here, of course, and he's already shown he should've been all along. And the same applies, I believe, to Cruz. Sure, I know he's slashing .197/.317/.366 through 36 games. But I also know that he knows he belongs here and that he shouldn't have been sent back. Just as I know that a lot of us aren't wild about making backward steps in life. It's deflating. Demoralizing.
Rather than knocking their two most promising pieces, purely for some pathetic contract discount in 2028, there needed to be a propping up. Of Cruz and Contreras. Of everyone throughout the organization who'd have seen and applauded it. Of the public, too, which is salivating to see them both, eager for a chance to embrace something, anything about this operation again.
In his backtrack session Tuesday, among Cherington's remarks was this: "I think that the results at the major-league level are what we’re all in this for, right? We’re all working hard every day to try to improve and get better. All we want to do is win baseball games in Pittsburgh. And so when the outcomes aren’t that way, and in a particular day where it’s a tough day — obviously, Sunday was a tough day — we’re all frustrated. Our fans are frustrated, and everyone’s frustrated. We share that frustration. I love that there’s enough passion here that people are frustrated by that."
No. I'm sorry, but with all due respect and appreciation for the dialogue we've had ... wow, just no.
No one who's responsible for burying prospects like Cruz, Contreras, and now Mason Martin -- among the minors' most powerful bats, still being wasted in Indianapolis -- can be entitled to say, "All we want to do is win baseball games in Pittsburgh," and have that go unchallenged. No one who keeps adding useless bats in the name of versatility, then allowing those players to keep ready prospects down ... can be entitled to that. No one who takes nearly three months to realize Yoshi Tsutsugo is eating alive the heart of his lineup ... can be entitled to that.
Same goes for Shelton. It's wonderful that his rugged side was awoken Sunday, but he can't act after the fact as if winning was the priority when he's repeatedly writing out lineups that favor some of those same useless bats in the name of versatility, while prospects who come up and perform are allowed to go cold at the far end of the dugout.
To put all this in a more, uh, positive tone: If Cherington had taken his roster as seriously as he has since the Cardinals stirred him to action, the Pirates might've been on a brighter road toward progress already. And if Shelton had taken all or even most of his lineups as seriously as he did the one for this game, it might've been that much brighter.
What they don't want anyone to know: They never took this season seriously. Not for a split-second. If they had, it wouldn't have taken any of us nearly three months to detect the first trace.
What they should know by now, once again with gusto: Pittsburgh matters now.
But don't take my word for it. I'm not the one who has to make it happen.
____________________
Reynolds got picked up.
If Suwinski and VanMeter don't do this ...
... then he's dragging along his season-long slump in an even uglier way than what I experienced.
Reynolds matters. He matters now.
Ke'Bryan Hayes, David Bednar, a handful of others plus the prospects that come up, they matter now.
I asked Suwinski about the intangible impact his home run, which brought a 5-5 tie in the sixth, might've had on the dugout:
"Yeah, for sure," he'd reply. "I mean, everyone definitely gets excited. They're all hyped up after that. And you know, that's a little extra motivation. Now we have the energy in our direction, and we go out there and shut them down."
Everyone wins. Suwinski entered the day at .182, no doubt worried he'd be headed back across Route 22 soon. He exited feeling like a vital cog for the future.
In turn, I asked VanMeter if maybe he stepped into the box the following inning an inch or two taller because of what Suwinski'd just done.
"Oh, no question," he came back. "Baseball's contagious, man. Anyone who tells you otherwise doesn't know anything about it. If someone around you succeeds, you feed off it."
Yeah, that. Exactly that.
And unspoken within that: If someone or a lot of someones around you stinks at the sport, it'll drag everyone down. To the extreme that almost all of the starting pitchers have been bad except for veteran Jose Quintana, a long-ago formed product. To the extreme that lineups are now routinely written with more than half the names at sub-Mendoza.
Too many lousy players?
No question.
Not enough support, including a basic strategic emphasis on winning vs. seeing what so-and-so's got, for the good ones on hand?
No question.
I asked Wil Crowe, one of the precious few examples of a player who's improved year-over-year, after another dominant 1-2-3 inning in this one, how much it'd mean to all involved for the group to grow together as opposed to what's been seen to date.
"You know, me and Cal had a conversation this morning," Crowe began, referring to new arrival Cal Mitchell, who went 2 for 5 with an RBI double in his second big-league game. "And that was one of the first things he brought up with me, that we've got a really good group. A bunch of good dudes. And I said, that's because we don't have any egos. Everybody's playing together. And we don't really have a bad apple in here. Look around."
I did. I concurred. That feel's been in place since Bradenton.
"Everybody likes to hang out. Everybody likes to be, you know, together. And for us, you know, we want to win for each other. It's not like a me thing. It's a we thing. And we really enjoy competing with one another and going after it every day."
No one on the roster does more of that than Gamel, of course, but he's also kind of the underlying voice of the group. So I brought this up with him, as well.
"You know, I think when you talk about the 2022 Buccos ... it's gonna take a village. If we lose somebody or somebody gets down, look at the young guy's we've got up ... Jack’s a good player, Cal's a good player, and you can feel what they bring. You see that they believe, and it makes you believe, too."
Wait, did my man really just call them "the 2022 Buccos?"
Oh, too good. Almost as if they matter.
JUSTIN BERL / GETTY
The Rockies' C.J. Cron homers off Zach Thompson in the third inning Wednesday at PNC Park.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
• Scoreboard
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE INJURIES
• 10-day injured list: RHP Heath Hembree (calf), OF Jake Marisnick (thumb), Daniel Vogelbach (hamstring)
• 60-day injured list: OF Greg Allen (hamstring), RHP Blake Cederlind (UCL), RHP Nick Mears (elbow surgery), Kevin Newman (groin), Roberto Pérez (hamstring, out for season)
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
1. Bryan Reynolds, CF
2. Cal Mitchell, RF
3. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
4. Ben Gamel, DH
5. Michael Chavis, 1B
6. Josh VanMeter, 2B
7. Rodolfo Castro, SS
8. Jack Suwinski, LF
9. Tyler Heineman, C
And for Bud Black's Rockies:
1. Connor Joe, LF
2. Yonathan Daza, CF
3. Charlie Blackmon, DH
4. C.J. Cron, 1B
5. Ryan McMahon, 3B
6. Randal Grichuk, RF
7. Jose Iglesias, SS
8. Garrett Hampson, 2B
9. Brian Serven, C
THE SCHEDULE
The club's off to California for three in San Diego, three more in Los Angeles. It'll be two lefties, Jose Quintana vs. Sean Manaea, Thursday at Petco Park, with a first pitch of 9:40 p.m. Eastern. Alex Stumpf's got the trip.
THE CONTENT
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