Kovacevic: Knock off the nonsense, bring the kids back, and coach them

There aren't a whole lot of stupid people employed by the Pittsburgh Baseball Club.

No sarcasm, I swear. Hear me out.

Ben Cherington isn't stupid. He didn't win a World Series ring, nor did he win multiple high-level executive positions, by being stupid. Steve Sanders isn't stupid, either. That's his assistant. And I can say the same for any number of others under them.

Which is to say, all of them know, just as we outside observers know, that this is a catastrophically awful swing ... 

... committed by a catastrophically awful player.

While at the same time, this is a patient, purposeful swing, complete with sweetness ...

... put forth by a player who comes with legit potential, punctuated by a smart call to take second with two outs and the RBI already delivered.

One of them's Yoshi Tsutsugo, of course, and the other Cal Mitchell.

One needs to go, and the other needs to be built up in the biggest way possible.

And that's it. That's my analysis. Of the Pirates' seventh loss in a row, 8-2 to the Phillies, on this appropriately overcast Sunday at PNC Park. Of the dozen losses they've crammed into the past 14 games. Of the 62 losses they've already accumulated through 102 games. Of the 100 losses they're now on a comfortable pace to achieve yet again.

Well, that and this: Cherington's about to take action. And no, I'm not just referencing Major League Baseball's trade deadline at 6 p.m. Tuesday, though that'll be the necessary start.

"I think we need to get past the deadline to see where our roster is," Cherington told me after this game when I asked if/when he'll get to bringing back the younger players recently cast back to Class AAA Indianapolis, all of whom are more productive and important than Tsutsugo, Josh VanMeter and any number of others cluttering the Pittsburgh roster. "If your question is about whether we'd envision some players who are currently in Indy getting opportunity in Pittsburgh in August and September, I'd say we hope that's the case."

It will be. And very soon, from what I've heard within other channels.

That means Jack Suwinski, who's now slashing .268/.348/.634 with four home runs, three doubles and five walks in his first, uh, 10 games since being demoted:

It also should mean Tucupita Marcano, who's at .362/.433/.500 in his 14 games since being demoted. And Travis Swaggerty, who's on a 12-for-30 tear with four extra-base hits and six walks. And yeah, even Diego Castillo, who was sent down earlier on this day with cause -- he legit needs to play everyday to improve his splits -- because there's no way he won't pop the same as the rest.

Am I forgetting anyone?

Oh, right: Roansy Contreras. He's down there, too, on what's a blatantly obvious move to reduce his service time and avoid Super-2 arbitration status, and nothing Cherington or anyone associated with the team speaks to this -- they claim it's to manage innings -- could convince me otherwise. Especially not after Cherington disclosed before this game that there's "no magic number" for how many starts Contreras needs in Indy and that the goal is to have him back by September.

But hey, September's not far off, he'll be back, and he'll still be the rotation's most exciting starter when he is. And to repeat, most of the rest will be here very soon.

Could all of this happened sooner still?

Yes.

Should the 2022 season have been used for something more than a springboard for trading veterans who range from really good (Jose Quintana) to the good (Ben Gamel) to the useful (Jake Marisnick) to the many more at the ugly opposite extreme (Tsutsugo, Josh VanMeter, Yu Chang, etc.)?

Yes.

Is it fair to characterize the season to date as a regression rather than anything remotely resembling progress?

Yes.

Is it fair to rip Cherington, Derek Shelton and everyone all the way up to Bob Nutting for that?

Hell yes. I'm doing it myself. Nonstop. Including right here. As I've written on countless occasions, this season never needed to be this way. There could've been -- no, should've been -- improvement across the board. And instead, we've seen the hitting, the baserunning, the fielding, the relief pitching ... everything but the past few weeks of starting pitching has taken a sizable step backward.

But my laptop comes equipped with a calendar, and I see there are two-plus months of ball left. That's a ton of time. Two months ago, not a soul among us saw the rotation being a strength for a single weekend, let alone these past several weeks. The latter's to the credit of Mitch Keller, JT Brubaker, Zach Thompson, Contreras and, above all, Quintana. And by extension, since it's been near-universal, I'll credit Oscar Marin, too, after two years of fairly wondering where his results were.

Maybe we'll see it on the other fronts.

I'd argue that we'd better see it.

If Andy Haines has any answers for his hitters, I'm not seeing them. They're last or close to last in nearly every category and, in what might be the biggest blight on his record so far, the hitters who arrive from Indy stay hot for no more than a few days before cooling off, then plunging. (One veteran player shared that observation with me on the recent trip to Denver, I'll add, so I'm hardly alone in noticing it.)

Cherington praised the starting pitching before this game, saying, "I think we're seeing great performance there, great progress," first crediting the players, then Marin, adding, "I believe in the staff we have around them."

But when turning to hitting, he'd say, "We believe we're making progress. It's also true that we've got a ton of young players really experiencing their first time in the majors. And the group that's working with them, particularly Andy, hasn't had as long a period of time with them because Andy's new to the Pirates this year."

He's new here for a reason: The Brewers made him the only firing from Craig Counsell's staff after the 2021 season. But I digress.

"I'm confident we're going to keep seeing position players improve," Cherington continued. "I believe in the work that's happening, I believe in those players' efforts, and I definitely believe that we've got position players who are capable of finding another level of performance. And that'll be important."

Not quite the same ring, huh?

As I said, he's not stupid. His people aren't stupid. And all of them combined, we should remember, are the reason everyone's so eager to see all these young players in Pittsburgh. They've built up this system from the Neal Huntington/Kyle Stark wasteland to No. 2 in most of the organizational rankings, and that was before counting Termarr Johnson and another acclaimed draft class.

But Cherington's deliberate and, at least to my tastes, too dulled in his senses to the sentiment around him. Not that any GM should be swayed by the public, but there's a difference between acceding to fans and simply being aware.

I can't state this often or emphatically enough: At some stage, the Pirates' institutional priority has to become winning the game being played right in front of them. And I'm not even talking about payroll, which will be a must but isn't yet. I'm talking about utilizing games being played at PNC Park, in front of paying customers, in front of a sellout crowd -- and yeah, I know a lot of that came across the Turnpike, but that only adds to the atmosphere -- and rolling Yoshi out there day after day for strikeout after strikeout.

That's not OK. Not here or anywhere. This isn't St. Petersburg, where barely a soul knows the Rays exist and, thus, their management can get away with stuff like that. This is a city that's been home to this franchise since 1882.

That's also why, I feel, everyone would've benefited from a more serious approach to winning in 2022. It's the tide that raises all boats. It's the spirit this group brought back on the flight from Los Angeles after that stirring sweep at Dodger Stadium. It's faith. It's confidence. In themselves. In each other. In Shelton. In the coaching staff. 

It was Castillo who told me right after that flight, "We feel like we can go out there and beat anybody."

Why take that away?

To hope there's a GM idiotic enough to take Yoshi's remaining $1.7 million off the books?

Bring them back. Coach them. If Cherington's right that they've got more to show than what they've shown, replace those doing the coaching.

Be better. Do better. 

Don't just be smart. Do smart things.

There's time.

• Brubaker's first lousy line in a long while -- 4 1/3 innings, seven runs, 12 hits, four Ks -- might've emanated, as Shelton explained, from "a lack of command." He didn't walk anyone, but far too many of his pitches wound up in the Philadelphia hitters' hot zones.

Or, it might've been something else.

Brubaker told me afterward he felt the Phillies' team-wide approach was to "hunt the sinker," the offering that's been his mainstay through the strong two months he'd had before this. If that's accurate, it'd be unusual, as he acknowledged. Teams will hunt location, meaning a specific quadrant within the strike zone, but it's rare to sit and wait on a specific pitch.

Not that there was any excuse-making. Brubaker also told me his stuff wasn't, for whatever reason, moving as late as it usually does. That forced him to avoid certain pitches that'd been effective for him.

He'll be fine.

• Ever hear the Pirates get recognized for a team-wide hitting approach, meaning beyond running up pitch counts?

Nah, neither do I.

• Alec Bohm and Nick Castellanos each went 4 for 5 for the Phillies and, if anyone needed further validation that Brubaker wasn't himself, there was this from Philadelphia's manager, Rob Thomson: “I think they were just getting good pitches to hit and landing good swings.” Ow.

• Ke'Bryan Hayes was a late lineup scratch because of what the team described as left knee discomfort, but it didn't sound serious as relayed by both Shelton and Hayes. The manager called Hayes "day-to-day," and Hayes told me it was just "sore." In fact, he thought he'd play Sunday, until the athletic trainers spotted some swelling and, with the team off Monday, recommended that he not play.

Hayes was hurt Saturday night on the Phillies' winning sequence, trying in vain to catch Michael Chavis' errant throw across the diamond.

"My foot kinda wedged up against the base whenever I went back," Hayes explained Sunday. "My foot was still stuck on the base, and my weight kinda drove me over. I felt something initially when I did it, which is why I laid there a little bit. Overnight, it was fine, probably because of my adrenaline. But I woke up this morning, and it was pretty sore."

• Heck, maybe Kevin Newman should be added to my list of trade candidates above.

Including his 3-for-5 output on this day, since coming off the injured list July 8, he's batting .315 -- 23 for 73 -- with eight doubles, a triple and six RBIs. For the season, though he's appeared in only 32 games, his .279 average is tops on the team, his .759 OPS second only to Bryan Reynolds' .779.

"I did a lot of work on my swing in the offseason," Newman told me. "So, to be able to go out there and get results ... man, baseball's a wave. You ride the wave."

Big smile with that.

• Mitchell strikes out a ton but, as noted above, that swing makes intriguing contact.

Utilized as the DH in this one and batting No. 2 behind Newman, he'd go 2 for 4, including the RBI double that followed Newman's double in the third. Since his most recent recall, Mitchell's batting .297 -- 11 for 37 -- with two home runs, a double and five RBIs. He's also struck out eight times in 39 plate appearances, a much healthier ratio than in his initial stint.

We'll see. I can share that I've heard nothing but good things about the young man, on and off the field, from people I've forever trusted.

• Apropos of nothing: This was the Phillies’ first four-game sweep on the correct end of the commonwealth since July 11-13, 1968. The great Dick Allen, a native of Wampum, Lawrence County, went 9 for 19 in that series.

• If Nutting and/or the Pirates held any sway in the sport, they'd be back in the East Division. It's so silly that they play the Phillies and Mets so sporadically.

And actually, I'd blow up the league configurations entirely and align everything akin to how the NFL and NHL do things, but don't get me started.

• I worry about a lot in my life. Oneil Cruz doesn't make the list. Let him play, and leave him alone.

• Congrats to the Reynolds family:

He told me everyone's healthy, happy and all else.

• Thanks for reading my baseball stuff. Won't be back here for a bit. Headed back out to Latrobe, then overseas. I'll miss this place, but not the same stale storylines.

THE ESSENTIALS

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

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE INJURIES

• 10-day injured list: OF Jake Marisnick (great toe)

• 15-day injured list: RHP Chase De Jong (knee)

• 60-day injured list: OF Canaan Njigba-Smith (wrist), RHP Blake Cederlind (UCL), RHP Nick Mears (elbow), RHP Max Kranick (elbow), C Roberto Pérez (hamstring)

THE LINEUPS

Shelton's card:

1. Kevin Newman, SS
2. Cal Mitchell, DH
3. Bryan Reynolds, CF
4. Ben Gamel, LF
5. Bligh Madris, RF
6. Oneil Cruz, SS
7. Josh VanMeter, 3B
8. Yoshi Tsutsugo, 1B
9. Tyler Heineman, C

And for Thomson's Phillies:

1. Kyle Schwarber,DH
2. Rhys Hoskins, 1B
3. Alec Bohm, 3B
4. J.T. Realmuto, C
5. Nick Castellanos, RF
6. Bryson Stott, 2B
7. Didi Gregorious, SS
8. Matt Vierling, LF
9. Odubel Herrera, CF

THE SCHEDULE

Off Monday, then back at it right here against the Brewers the next day at 7:05 p.m. That's an hour and change after the trade deadline. Should be fun. Alex Stumpf and Chris Halicke will double-cover the game, and I'll have a column if there's a significant trade.

THE CONTENT

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