Kovacevic: It'll take a lot more than Cruz to push this process along

Mitch Keller and I'd just exited the Pirates' clubhouse inside PNC Park late Friday night, the pitcher then veering one way, the reporter the other. We'd just been engaged in a bit of baseball talk, mostly about his revitalized slider and how it's fed off his sinker.

Good stuff. And being blunt here, it might've been needed on this end.

See, this was after yet another comatose outcome for Major League Baseball's most miserable offense, a 2-0 two-single gutting by the Giants in which Carlos Rodón hung as many zeroes as Ks on the big board with eight each, and I'm not going to lie: I took the elevator down from the press box all set to sink the figurative teeth into the subject.

I'd seen plenty enough of this trash, with a sickly 38 runs in the 14 games since the Dodger Stadium Minor Miracle, with a no-hitter seemingly threatened once a week -- including Rodón carrying one into the fifth inning -- with an endless parade of strikeouts following first-pitch hacks and ... and ... feels like I'm forgetting something ...

Oh, right: Oneil Cruz still isn't doing that here.

So, as Keller proceeded toward the players' parking garage beneath the stadium, I headed up the hallway toward the press box elevator. And as I did, for reasons I'm not sure I fully understand upon writing this, I stopped in that hallway and paid more attention than I'd ever done to the beautiful murals adorning the cement blocks there, commemorating the Pittsburgh Baseball Club's championships, pennants and individual awards.

That's when I snapped the pic that's atop this column. The one that, from left to right, honors the franchise's most recent National League MVPs: Dick Groat, Roberto Clemente, Dave Parker, Willie Stargell, Barry Bonds and Andrew McCutchen.

And I thought to myself what anyone reading this is likely thinking: When might we see another?

No, I'm not laying that on Cruz, any more than I'd lay it on Bryan Reynolds or Ke'Bryan Hayes or, for that matter, Nick Gonzales or Henry Davis, the two prospects most commonly rated higher than Cruz within his own organization. The odds are outrageously stacked against even reaching the majors -- just ask Cam Vieaux, who finally made it on this day at age 28 -- never mind achieving superstar status.

But here's the thing, and it really is the thing in this maddening summer: Special talent's needed. And it's needed to somehow converge at somewhat the same time. Even though the sport's economics, coupled with an owner who's seldom spent sufficiently, render that an epic challenge. Even though at least a couple of those players have already arrived and, thus, started the clock. And even though Ben Cherington's approach of acquiring young talent is to aim for high ceilings rather than potentially face-saving safe types.

Just as they could all go boom, they could all go bust. All of them. Reynolds and Hayes. Cruz, too.

There's a lot I haven't liked about Cherington's execution. What stands out within the moment, whether it's his fault of Bob Nutting's, is that Cruz is flagrantly being held down to prevent him from gaining Super-2 arbitration status in three years, a move that's about limiting pay at that point. It's trash. It's absolute trash to do that, to the player, to the current team and, while I'm at it, to the 19,075 who paid for a ticket on this night and everyone else who cares about the only level of the system that should matter to anyone at 115 Federal.

And yet the next time I question Cherington's approach will be the first. For a reason. I know, seeing through the smoke of messes like this game and this shortsighted priority with Cruz, that the goal is the right one. It's been the right one for decades, and he's the first executive to realize and act on it.

I get it. And I respect almost all of it. For real.

Before those half-dozen MVPs I cited above, one has to rewind all the way back to Paul Waner in 1927 for the previous one. Honus Wagner, the greatest of all the Pirates, would've won one or more, except that they didn't start giving out MVPs until 1911. And man, that makes for some massive gaps, even if one accounts for Ralph Kiner having been snubbed through the late 1940s.

It's been a while already. Another day or two or three won't kill anyone.

JOE SARGENT / GETTY

The Giants' Joc Pederson homers in the fourth inning Friday night at PNC Park.

• The game stunk. I can't imagine why anyone would want to read about the game, but hey, that's part of the gig.

Solo home runs, by Luis Gonzalez on Zach Thompson's third pitch of the game and by Joc Pederson in the fourth inning, accounted for all of the evening's offense:

It was a weird start for Thompson, who'd put forth a 2.27 ERA in eight appearances since April 4, but then lasted 4 1/3 innings here on a lack of command: He walked five -- one in each inning -- threw only 46 of his 83 pitches for strikes and needed three double plays to stick around as long as he did.

"Uh, not great," came Thompson's unflinching assessment afterward. "I was all over the place. Really relied on my defense today. I just gotta kind flush this one and move forward."

What happened?

"I don’t know, to be honest with you. The direction that I’ve been talking about with my mechanics was definitely off. Something wasn’t right."

• Always uplifting, under any circumstance, to witness a dream come true. Vieaux finally got the call, he took the mound like he belonged with 1 2/3 scoreless innings and three strikeouts, and he got a warm ovation once lifted. Chris has all that.

• Chris also has Liover Peguero surprisingly popping up from Altoona and anything else that might be related to Cruz.

• No less effective in relief were Yerry De Los Santos with a 1-2-3 seventh and two Ks, then Chase De Jong going scoreless in the eighth and ninth with four Ks.

"It felt very good," De Los Santos told me, and it should've. He's got back-end material, notably the heavy sink with which he pounded the Giants, and he's got a 0.78 WHIP and 10 Ks through seven appearances.

• De Los Santos was signed as a 16-year-old out of the Dominican Republic for $100,000 by Rene Gayo, the former Latin American head scout. De Los Santos lit up when I mentioned Gayo, saying he'd received a congratulatory text upon being called up to the bigs last month.

"Good man," De Los Santos told me. "Best man."

• Let history record that the two singles came off the bats of Hayes and Jack Suwinski.

• Excited as so many seem to have gotten about the recent recalls, they aren't exactly ripping the seams off the ball: Suwinski's got the eight home runs, but he's batting .212. So's Cal Mitchell. Diego Castillo's at .192. The only one with a respectable average has been Tucupita Marcano at .262 through 19 games before going on the COVID injury list on this afternoon.

I asked Castillo after this game how everyone's confidence is holding up.

"We've got to keep fighting, keep competing," he told me. "That's what baseball is about. If you know you can do it, one day, it's gonna come."

• It won't for Yu Chang.

• Poor Daniel Vogelbach's plunged from being one of the majors' most productive DHs to, since returning from the IL June 3, a 5-for-40 mess. He'd told me before the recent eight-game trip that his timing was off, but there's been progress on that front.

"It's frustrating," he told me after this one. "I feel like I'm having good at-bats, swinging at the pitches I want, and they're just not falling right now. You always go through it once a year. But what's even more frustrating is when you feel like you're not helping the team win."

He allowed himself a small smile.

"But what do we have left, 100 games? I'm confident in myself as a hitter. I just have to keep having good at-bats. And tonight, that's one of the best pitchers we saw."

• Derek Shelton concurred regarding Rodón, making it sound like there wasn't much anyone could've done against this version of him.

I asked what, if anything, he or hitting coach Andy Haines do in such a situation in terms of adjustments to approaches:

• Again, Rodón deserves his credit. His velocity ramped up as the game proceeded and, by the fourth, he was up to 97 mph with the four-seamer, and that was that. He'd have had a shutout, too, if Gabe Kapler hadn't pulled him with a pitch count of 98 in favor of closer Camilo Doval, who breezed through the ninth.

“My younger self would've been, ‘I want to go back out,’ ” Rodón would say to reporters down the hall. “But this is a marathon. I want to be ready for five days from now when I have to face Atlanta.”

Yeah, the Braves might mount actual resistance.

• Nice crowd on an 80-degree summer's night at 19,075, and it'll be that much bigger Saturday for the Reynolds bobblehead giveaway. And if anyone hasn't seen it yet, the resemblance is really strong, unlike most of these:

PIRATES

The eyes alone are uncanny, right?

• Thanks for reading my baseball stuff. Maybe someday it'll feel more fulfilling.

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
• Scoreboard

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE INJURIES

• 10-day injured list: OF Ben Gamel (hamstring), OF Jake Marisnick (thumb), 1B Yoshi Tsutsugo (lumbar muscle strain), Josh VanMeter (finger)

• 60-day injured list: SS Kevin Newman (groin), OF Canaan Njigba-Smith (wrist), OF Greg Allen (hamstring), RHP Blake Cederlind (UCL), RHP Nick Mears (elbow surgery), Roberto Pérez (hamstring, out for season)

• COVID injured list: INF/OF Tucupita Marcano

THE LINEUPS

Shelton's card:

1. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
2. Bryan Reynolds, CF
3. Michael Chavis, 1B
4. Daniel Vogelbach, DH
5. Diego Castillo, SS
6. Jack Suwinski, LF
7. Yu Chang, 2B
8. Cal Mitchell, RF
9. Tyler Heineman, C

And for Gabe Kapler's Giants:

1. Luis Gonzalez, RF
2. Mike Yastrzemski, CF
3. Evan Longoria, 3B
4. Joc Pederson, LF
5. Brandon Belt, 1B
6. Thairo Estrada, 2B
7. Tommy La Stella, DH
8. Brandon Crawford, SS
9. Austin Wynns, C

THE SCHEDULE

Same two teams Saturday, 4:05 p.m., matching lefties Jose Quintana (1-4, 3.53) and Alex Wood (4-5, 4.11). Chris will have it covered.

THE CONTENT

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