PITTSBURGH (TNS) — I understand where Andrew McCutchen was coming from when he gave his rah-rah speech Sunday after the Pittsburgh Pirates were swept by the San Francisco Giants.
It’s the kind of veteran leader “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” stuff you have to say after a 10th loss in 12 tries.
”You can easily fall down. You can accept things really quickly in this game. But I’ve been there before, and I refuse to be in that situation,” McCutchen said.
Here’s the problem, though, ‘Cutch. You don’t have a choice.
Baseball is not the kind of game that lends itself to one guy being able to drag a flailing team to victory like a quarterback in football or a dominant scorer in the NBA.
Maybe a pitcher — once every five days. But certainly not a 36-year-old designated hitter who rarely even plays the field.
That point was driven home Tuesday night when the Pirates responded to McCutchen’s pep talk by getting drilled 11-0 at the hands of the Cleveland Guardians. The defeat drops the Pirates to a season-worst 12 games under .500 (41-53).
It was a thud of a response to McCutchen’s words and to the enthusiasm generated by the call-ups of prospects Quinn Priester, Endy Rodriguez and Liovero Peguero.
All three youngsters played Monday. None of them did much. Peguero and Rodriguez went a combined 0 for 7 with five strikeouts. Priester gave up seven hits and seven earned runs in 5 1/3 innings in his Major League Baseball debut.
”I started to fall behind guys,” Priester said. “I tried to fight back into counts. But against good hitters, I need to be better.”
It was a washout of a night all around. From an opening rain delay to start the game, to the latest round of Canadian wildfire smoke in the air, to the performance of the call-ups, to a smattering of “Sell The Team” chants from the fans, to the final score.
The 12-hit output from Cleveland was highlighted by three home runs. The Guardians had just 64 as a team entering the contest, the fewest in MLB this season.
”We are going to have a lot of young guys on the field. There are going to be growing pains. There are going to be bumps. We just have to grind through them,” manager Derek Shelton said after the loss.
Even Wiz Khalifa’s ceremonial first pitch missed the plate by a mile.
At least the Pirates grounds crew did better handling the rain delay than the one in Cincinnati.
Unfortunately for the Pirates, Ohio’s other team had no such issues.
There was a strange dichotomy to the whole day surrounding the Pirates. On the one hand, everyone seemed excited about the call-ups of Priester, Rodriguez and Peguero — and the fact that six total rookies were in the lineup to start the game.
But at the same time, that much of a youth movement is also very much an acknowledgment that the Pirates’ fluky hot start to the season is now ancient history. The real 2023 Pirates have emerged. It’s time to punt on the idea that this team is going to recapture its 20-9 form from April and start looking ahead to 2024.
No one around PNC Park was framing the conversation that way before the first pitch, but the undercurrent of such reality was nonetheless present.
And obvious by the time the final out was recorded.
”The future is here, man,” Rodriguez said after the game.
Indeed, it is. He’s right.
And I’m sure that’s equal parts exhilarating and terrifying for owner Bob Nutting and general manager Ben Cherington. For a franchise whose entire business model is based on perpetually selling the future, when the future arrives all at once, it better perform.
After 30 years of constantly telling the fans that the cavalry is coming, it better do something once it comes to town.
If not to salvage this season, then to give the fanbase confidence that it might be able to make next season one worth watching beyond May 1.
