I'd asked Jared Jones if there'd been times on this Tuesday night at PNC Park that he'd needed to really rear back for a bit extra. And I winked his way with the question, as if to suggest I'd already anticipated the answer.
Which, it turns out, I did:
Press play. It's four whole seconds, and it's wonderful.
This kid's wonderful.
And know what else?
He's worth an extra effort himself.
Jones had just pounded away for six stubborn, sometimes sizzling innings in the Pirates' 1-0 silencing of the Dodgers, putting down one of Major League Baseball's powerhouses with the help of a scoreless inning each from a semi-resurgent pen -- Colin Holderman, Aroldis Chapman and David Bednar -- plus a jack from just-recalled Jack Suwinski:
Jack is back. pic.twitter.com/HKlAM0QaJC
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) June 4, 2024
All to the palpable delight of ... whatever portion of the paid attendance of 24,168 hadn't purchased a ticket primarily to see Shohei Ohtani.
You know, this guy:
Jared Jones striking out Shohei Ohtani, but without the stuff at the beginning and end
— Platinum Ke’Bryan (@PlatinumKey13) June 4, 2024
I also just wanted to Tweet this one more time https://t.co/JD1cDZ056Q pic.twitter.com/P5KaO4FA5V
Also, this guy:
Jared Jones (and Henry Davis) get Shohei Ohtani to ground into a routine double play pic.twitter.com/FBatepE3cG
— Platinum Ke’Bryan (@PlatinumKey13) June 4, 2024
And, oh, right, this guy, too:
Jared Jones: 3
— SkenesMuse (@PaulSkenesMuse) June 4, 2024
Shohei Ohtani: 0#LetsGoBucs pic.twitter.com/PXWN1XRn0L
Oh, my.
Three plate appearances, and the player whose $70 million annual pay rivals the entire payroll of Jones' team mustered all of two swinging strikeouts and a 6-3 twin-killing.
Never mind Jones hailing from Whittier, Calif., right between the two Los Angeles locations of Ohtani's already legendary career.
"I'm not going to lie: It's a big deal," Jones would ultimately say of retiring Ohtani all three times up. "Growing up, he's a player everybody looked up to."
His manager noticed, too. Especially on Ohtani's first time up, when Jones and Henry Davis conspired to open up with three 89-mph sliders, then, almost cruelly, pumping 101-mph heat through the same tunnel that the slider travels:
MLB
"Just threw what I had," Jones remembered.
Broad smile.
And of the other strikeout, which saw him dare to throw Ohtani back-to-back changeups -- not exactly his strongest suit -- en route to an eighth-pitch slider for a foul-tip: "Yeah, he was out in front of the first one, so I thought he was sitting fastball. So I went right back to it."
Another broad smile. And yeah, that's all. He just went right back to that pitch that he'd put forth all of nine times on the night. He threw it all and did it all, conceding three hits and as many walks while striking out six. He also had to put out fire after fire, stranding runners in scoring position in each of his first four innings.
Even more impressive, I'd say from the broader perspective of having covered his previous start in Detroit that didn't go so well, he rebounded in a big way.
"I said last week I couldn't wait to get back on the mound again," he reminded, and he did say that up there. "It's a great feeling to bounce back after a rough one."
That's welcome, too, in and of itself, as I'd mentioned to him at Comerica Park. They weren't all going to be 'SportsCenter' montages. He'd need to battle, too.
I asked Derek Shelton if there was part of him, as manager, that'd actually prefer to see a young pitcher do that.
"Yeah, 100 percent," he replied without hesitation. "I think, with his first four or five starts, we all got enamored with all the swing-and-miss. The game's not that easy. The Tigers, they attacked him a little bit. So for him to bounce back after what you'd say was his worst outing, and then come back and do it against this team, I think that's extremely impressive. And I think that shows you know what kind of moxie this kid's got."
Yep. So here I go again ...
(Obligatory deep breath here.)
Do right by him. Do right by Paul Skenes, who'll take his own shot at the Dodgers in the second game Wednesday night. Do right by Mitch Keller, who's remarkably retained his staff ace role amid the wunderkinds' arrival. Do right by Bailey Falter, for somehow squeezing his nevermore-besmirched name into every paragraph that's penned in this spirit.
Do right by the whole bleeping operation, never mind the city at large, and go out and get better. Like, now.
Because this result, which I'll restate was wonderful unto itself, was the polar opposite of any sort of template for sustainable success, and I'll buzzkill my way through a bunch of bullets to support that:
• The Dodgers would blank out at 0 for 12 with runners in scoring position. That's insane. As much credit as pitchers will deserve for multiple escapes, that's not a model for anything.
• In the eighth, Teoscar Hernandez boomed a ball deep to left that both sounded and looked like a three-run blast off Chapman, who betrayed that himself ...
... before Suwinski tracked it down. Oscar Marin had to visit Chapman to settle him down -- "Oscar did a great job there," Shelton would say -- and Chapman blew away Andy Pages, the next hitter, to strand two.
• As if to punctuate this point, with two outs in the ninth, Chris Taylor, owner of a .103 average that'd make even Ben Cherington cringe, boomed a ball off Bednar deep into the North Side Notch that brought an audible gasp from everyone assembled. Bryan Reynolds tracked this one down at 404 feet -- "We got a little help from our ballpark," Shelton would acknowledge -- for the 27th out.
• The offense struck out 13 more times, countering that with four hits and two walks. I couldn't care less that National League strikeout leader and old friend Tyler Glasnow registered nine of those, if only because the names never matter in this category.
• Oneil Cruz, to shine a harsh spotlight in at least one direction, went 0 for 4 with two Ks and, just like that, is right back in another big slump, this one 4 for 31 with 15 Ks. And he's only supposed to represent the swing vote around here.
Don't wait and hope to see improvement in the offense. Don't run and hide from the responsibility to improve the offense. Go and do what pretty much every other team in professional sports would do and attempt -- I mean, try, for crying out loud -- to make that improvement happen.
Cherington might've embarrassed himself verbally as never before over the weekend on his weekly radio show with the following remark: "We think we’re better than we were at this point last year. Whatever the record is, whatever the standings were, we think we’re a deeper team, and we think we'll continue to get better over the course of 2024.”
A year ago on this date, the Pirates were 32-27 and in first place.
Now, they're 28-32 and a half-game out of last place.
I don't mind a fair assessment of the team having raised its profile and potential because of Jones and Skenes, but that's not what that was. It was pointing to a white car and telling everyone it's red. And it was done purely for the purpose of obfuscation, particularly to distract from the offense needing to be addressed, and that's because ... wow, I still don't know. I still can't fathom what keeps a competitive fire from consuming people with this much authority over a sports entity.
It's about the offense. It's a billion, trillion, gazillion percent about the offense.
It's not, as Cherington would further say on that show, “You think about the rotation, the bullpen, team defense and team offense. For those other three, there've been stretches this season where each of those other components has performed well. But there've also been stretches where we haven’t got a good performance from those groups. We probably haven’t gotten every part of the roster clicking kinda all at the same time."
No. No, that isn't it at all. The offense was competitive through a grand total of 11 games. That's not a 'clicking' issue. That's a crappy-offense issue, and it's held true throughout.
Maybe I'm naive or flat-out stupid, but, contrary to my perception of public sentiment, I don't see 2024 as some lost cause. Or yet another figurative can to be kicked down the road.
Not with these wild-card standings ...
MLB
... and definitely not with a rotation that, suddenly, seems tailored for a wild-card, short-series, we'll-beat-anyone scenario. Absurd as this might come across in the moment, think about it: Which National League team would want to see Skenes, Jones and Keller in a best-of-three?
All the Pirates need is to get there.
And to get there, all they need is to have the front office be even a fraction as invested in this process as the players appear to be.
I like a lot of the strengths. I like the intangibles. I like seeing Andrew McCutchen thumbing his nose at his age. I like seeing Nick Gonzales pop to life. I like Connor Joe. I like Reynolds' ... consistency. I love the starting pitching. I believe the pen can be better than it's been.
I also believe that the fans, most unfortunately, have a firmer grasp than the GM of the urgency to get moving on what's missing:
Roaring boos for Rowdy Tellez at PNC Park. #LetsGoBucs pic.twitter.com/nGdvSwWvG9
— SkenesMuse (@PaulSkenesMuse) June 4, 2024
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