MIAMI -- It's not the same.
I get that it might feel that way, with these Pirates now having opened their 2024 schedule with a four-game sweep of the Marlins, finished off first by flicking away a five-run deficit, then by finding a couple more in the 10th inning to prevail, 9-7, on this Sunday at loanDepot park.
I get that it might feel that way, with Rowdy Tellez having gone deep for a dramatic three-run home run in the seventh to pull ahead:
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) March 31, 2024
I get that it might feel that way, with Oneil Cruz sprinting home on Jason Delay's deftly delivered safety squeeze that highlighted a 10th in which not a solitary ball left the infield:
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) March 31, 2024
I get that it might feel that way, with every morning that one sees standings like these:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
It's a striking sight, I won't lie. Always as applied to this particular franchise.
But I'm here to attest -- no, to adamantly insist -- that what I've witnessed in this week down here with this collective isn't at all reminiscent of the 20-8 start that pretty much set Major League Baseball ablaze a year ago.
It's not the same. It's just not.
I could condense this perspective to sharing a single, brief conversation with Mitch Keller I'd have after this game at his stall.
"Are people excited back home?" he'd ask, aware that communicating with the citizens is part and parcel of my job.
And before I had the chance to answer, he'd do so himself.
"They should be. We're a good team."
Yeah. That. That's why it's not the same.
The 2023 team, truth be told, never felt all that real. It couldn't have. The hitting, the starting pitching, even the fielding all ranked top-five in the majors, and there wasn't a soul who could've believed that any of those three were actually the case. And that goes double, given that most of it came after Cruz had been lost to a serious injury. It was smoke, mirrors and a slew of other magic that'd soon give way to the harshest of realities by mid-May.
This team is ... well, watch these two pitches from Aroldis Chapman in the Miami eighth:
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) March 31, 2024
That's not an intangible element, my friends. That's a legendary reliever still firing it up there at 100 mph, then pulling the string as he pleases, then striking a pose after striking out the batter.
That's not luck. That's not getting a call from the ump. That's not a ball finding grass.
This team is ... well, watch these two pitches from Ryan Borucki the previous inning:
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) March 31, 2024
Statcast labeled both of those as sliders. Borucki assured me that neither was. The first was a sweeper, the second a cutter. One to a lefty, the other to a righty. Both devastating.
Nothing warm and fuzzy there, either, yeah?
See what I mean?
"That was a really good series," Borucki would tell me. "But today of all days, I think, was just a great team win. Everybody's contributing. Everybody in here. And that's when you start to feel like ..."
He tailed off, which would've been fine, but then he finished, "We're just playing good baseball."
I asked Tellez, Mr. Engagement in this environment, about the general vibe:
"Vibe's really good," he'd reply. "Got a lot of players in here who've been on winning teams, a lot of guys who want to be on a winning team. You can sense that in here. It's a different aura. This is my first time here, so I haven't been here very long, but you can see the difference. I've said it multiple times: Playing the Pirates last year when I was in Milwaukee was tough. But you bring in some older players who've been on winning teams, you have a couple of guys who've won a World Series ... that says a lot when you bring those guys in."
As for how they've performed to date, he'd add only, "We're just playing well."
Yep.
I could swim through a sea of stats to support that, though this should suffice: The bullpen's been tagged with two runs and eight hits through 20 1/3 innings, striking out 21 and walking four. But if not, hey, the Pirates outscored the Marlins, 31-17, for a plus-14 run differential that's second-best in the majors. And, lest any false narratives arise regarding this opponent, Miami was one of the National League's wild-card participants last fall.
Coincidence or not, Derek Shelton took care to point that out in his postgame assessment, saying of his team, "They just continue to go. I mean, you're talking about a team that's a playoff team last year. That's a really good club. So the thing that stands out to me is that we have 26 guys on our roster, and all 26 in the four-game series did something to help us win. I think that's really important."
There's not the same ... I don't know ... surprise in his tone that I'd detected at times a year ago, when he'd seem not to know how to even react. But maybe that's because, back then, nothing was going wrong. Whereas now, in three of these four games, there was authentic adversity that'd be overcome.
Which is to say, Bailey Falter started this one.
I'm not about to rip management amid a start like this, but that might've been the dumbest decision imaginable with how poorly this guy's pitched through his two months in Pittsburgh last season, then all through this spring training. And sure enough, he'd be blasted for five runs in the first inning, including the flattest sinker in history served up for a Jazz Chisholm grand slam.
There's no way Falter should start again. Nor, as long as I'm at it, should he pitch again at this level. Not sure how much more evidence anyone needs.
But the bounceback was almost immediate, with the Pirates stringing together enough hits for three runs in the second inning and another in the fourth, all leading into Tellez's own bounceback from fanning his first three times up.
"Honestly, I felt good up there all day," he'd tell me. "I wouldn't say anything changed there. I just got all of it."
Uh-huh. Fought through eight pitches from Miami reliever Vladimir Gutierrez and drove the ninth one 425 feet, well over the fence in center:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
Look at the location of that ninth pitch. That's the reward for fighting through the first eight.
Nothing fluky there. Dude banged 35 two years ago for the Brewers.
David Bednar brought more adversity, blowing a one-run lead and his save in the ninth on Nick Gordon's solo home run. I'm about as worried about Bednar as I am about Ke'Bryan Hayes' defense after those two errors the other day. He was going back-to-back after three weeks of inactivity due to a strained lat.
In the 10th, Shelton deployed Cruz as a pinch-runner for the automatic man at second base. Alika Williams bunted Cruz to third. Delay couldn't have applied a more appropriate touch on his own bunt, though first baseman Jake Burger fielded it cleanly and threw home for ... what might've been a closer play had Cruz not taken a bit of a liberty on the called safety squeeze.
I asked Cruz if he broke early, and I got back the broadest, most devilish smile to go with the nod.
Which was wonderful. All of it.
I won't offer any grand over-the-top outlooks beyond what anyone's already offering in this world, and that's a big zero.
On to Washington.
• Not for me. I'm flying home.
• Thanks for reading. I appreciated having you with me here on this trip all week long.
