One thing was certainly different about the Pittsburgh Pirates series in Toronto. For a change, Rowdy Tellez was good.
The much-maligned first baseman was 4 for 8 with a walk and four RBIs.
Rowdy Tellez has driven in all three runs against his old squad today! pic.twitter.com/0CJLQxDCFD
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) June 2, 2024
Aside from him, many of the same old storylines that have troubled the Pirates all year pinched them in their two losses against the Blue Jays.
Sandwiched around an 8-1 victory over the Jays on Saturday, the Pirates dropped a 5-3 contest in 14 innings Friday and a 5-4 result on Sunday.
In the series finale, Tellez was 3 for 3 with runners in scoring position. The rest of the team was 0 for 13. The club left 13 men on base.
In Friday’s series opener, the team was 1 for 15 with runners in scoring position, leaving eight men on base. The lineup went the final eight innings without a hit.
Those issues have been ongoing all year, as the Bucs are hitting .207 with runners in scoring position — 29th out of 30 Major League Baseball teams. They are 27th with runners on base at .228. The team batting average overall of .229 is 25th. The franchise’s 7.34 men left on base per game is the worst in baseball.
Those issues really aren’t fixable. What are the low-budget Pirates going to do? Overhaul their lineup and trade for a bunch of veteran bats? Eat the contracts of underperforming veterans they currently have to promote some of the Quad-A guys they have in Indianapolis?
To a certain extent, they’ve done as much of that as they are going to do until or unless they get rid of Tellez, which (at .194 for the season) they still may do.
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One thing manager Derek Shelton could do better, though, is to lean more into his starting rotation. Or, perhaps more to the point, one thing general manager Ben Cherington could allow Shelton to do is lean into the starting rotation more.
We’ve seen this problem materialize a number of times already this year when a starter is lifted from a game, seemingly with something left to give, only to have the middle relief waste the effort.
Jared Jones’ five-inning, one-hit, 59-pitch, no-decision in a loss against the New York Mets leaps to mind. So do Paul Skenes’ first two home starts at PNC Park. In three of his past four starts, Bailey Falter has left the game with two runs allowed or less, with the game tied 0-0 (against the Cubs on May 18), up 1-0 (Friday against the Blue Jays) or 2-2 (against the Cubs on May 12).
In none of those three games did Falter exceed 83 pitches. Yet the Pirates lost all three. His (and the team’s) only victory over those four starts was an 11-5 win over the Braves when Falter threw 97 pitches and allowed three earned runs.
It just feels like the Pirates are throwing darts and missing almost every time when it comes to leaving a starter in or taking him out.
Look at Quinn Priester’s outing on Sunday. Up 3-2 with two outs in the bottom of the fifth, Priester was pulled with two runners on in favor of fellow righty Hunter Stratton to face left-handed hitting Daniel Vogelbach.
Of course, Vogelbach got a hit and gave Toronto a 4-3 lead.
Danny Doubles ‼️ pic.twitter.com/h6D926a5Lk
— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) June 2, 2024
Stratton would allow one more in the sixth, and the Jays went on to win 5-4.
Sure, Priester was grinding. But was there anyone in Pittsburgh — or Toronto, for that matter — who felt like Stratton had a better chance of getting Vogelbach out than Priester did?
Well, anyone besides Shelton. I mean, it was one right-hander for another. A developing first-round pick is getting yanked for a 27-year-old middle reliever. Was that necessary or at all beneficial to Priester?
On Friday, Falter completed six scoreless innings on 81 pitches with a 1-0 lead. Colin Holderman came in and hit a batter, then allowed that runner to score when Ji Hwan Bae lost Vogelbach’s fly ball to center in the twilight.
Sunset time in Toronto: 8:54pm
Time we scored: 8:54pmNight Mode ¯_(ツ)_/¯ pic.twitter.com/b2p55GfPM7
— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) June 1, 2024
Holderman came in with a 0.52 ERA, and that was some bad luck. Still, it’s yet another example of a starting pitcher coming out with a pristine line score just to turn it over to a string of multiple bullpen pitchers who have failed to get it done as a unit all year.
Just crossing their fingers and hoping that the middle relief, Holderman, and whatever combination of David Bednar and Aroldis Chapman are all on their game on the same night has usually been a fruitless endeavor for the Pirates this year. The Pirates’ 4.44 bullpen ERA is 24th in the league. The starting ERA of 3.64 is 10th. The team has had 30 save opportunities this year, converting only 16.
Luckily, the Pirates got three good innings out of Luis Ortiz when Mitch Keller was pulled after 106 pitches through six innings in the 8-1 win Saturday to at least gain one game of the series. But even the 6-1 lead didn’t feel safe at the time.
The Pirates need to rely less on so many mediocre options out of the bullpen so frequently when they have a good starting rotation to lean on. They also need a few clutch hits earlier in games to give that bullpen more cushion when the starters are inevitably lifted.
You tell me which of those two things is more likely to happen.
Or, maybe better said, you tell me which of those two things is less likely to happen.
Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via X. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.
