Swept out of the gate
Fall to 5 ½ games out of first after debacle at Wrigley
CHICAGO — As Pirates players packed their bags and tugged on black- and- gold Hawaiian shirts for their postgame flight to St. Louis early Sunday evening, reality set in.
They arrived at Wrigley Field within striking distance of first place in the National League Central Division, 2 ½ games out. They’ll leave 5 ½ out, the result of a three- game sweep by the suddenly resurgent Cubs.
What transpired over the course of 27 innings at Wrigley Field — including an 8- 3 loss Sunday for the Pirates — was not at all what they expected or wanted, and it only increased the sense of urgency with which they should operate.
Of course, that’s the external way of looking at things. Inside the Pirates clubhouse, manager Clint Hurdle believes things are different.
“These are men who know what’s at stake,” Hurdle said. “They know how to prepare. They know how to get ready. People outside have a tendency to put more emphasis on certain things than we do.”
Here, then, might be something on which both sides can agree: The Pirates need Hurdle to be right here.
Because with the Major League Baseball trade deadline a
little more than two weeks away, what the Pirates ( 4448) do in three games against the Cardinals at Busch Stadium could easily cement general manager Neal Huntington’s focus.
Think about it: If the Pirates are swept again, and the Cubs do the same to the Reds, the Pirates suddenly could find themselves seven games under .500, 8 ½ games out of first place and with little shot at the wild card.
Is that a situation where you would expect Huntington to add? Probably not. Oh, and it also would mean the Cubs have probably figured out how to play baseball again, which could be bad for Hurdle’s club.
Which is why it’s imperative the Pirates glean what little good they can from this series and also assess the areas where they can improve, most notably on the mound.
The issue Sunday, similar to Saturday with Jordan Lyles, was Trevor Williams’ lack of fastball command. That put Williams behind in counts, and the Cubs made him pay, clobbering three home runs.
“I thought I made some good pitches early, but toward the end I didn’t execute,” said Williams, who allowed season- highs in homers and earned runs ( 8). “I need to get better.”
Williams’ start — his first since July 1 because of the birth of his adopted daughter, Josephine Marie — went from OK to ugly in a span of five hitters in the fifth and sixth innings.
Jason Heyward crushed a changeup that Williams left out over the plate. Williams made a decent pitch to Albert Almora Jr., a fastball at the knees, but chances are Almora was expecting it on a 3- 1 count. The fastball Williams threw to Kyle Schwarber was up, and he crushed it 437 feet with an exit velocity of 112 mph.
“Fastball execution wasn’t his friend,” Hurdle said. “He’s going to compete. He’s going to get after it. He’s not getting the ball where he exactly wants to.”
The Pirates really can’t afford to have Williams and Lyles falter. To compete in the division, they need Williams and Joe Musgrove to anchor the rotation and for Chris Archer to pitch the way he did Friday.
Put another way: They need Williams to sort of resemble the guy he was in the second half of last season, when he pitched to a 1.38 post- break ERA, the second best in Pirates history behind Zane Smith’s 1.30 in 1990.
“He’s a grown man,” Hurdle said of Williams. “His confidence isn’t going to waver. … If he sharpens some things up in the bullpen, I believe he’ll get back in place.”
Hurdle and Co. will need the same sort of conviction when it comes to the offense, which also had somewhat of a sleepy series.
Sure, Starling Marte homered three times and Jung Ho Kang went 3 for 8 with a home run, a double, two RBIs and several balls hit hard. But as a team, the Pirates totaled just seven extrabase hits.
In their final 17 games before the break, the Pirates went 12- 5 and hit .316 with 74 extra- base hits and 113 runs scored. They obviously weren’t going to maintain those averages — 4.4 and 6.6 per game — but this weekend the Pirates came nowhere close.
“It was tough, but the season is long,” Kang said through interpreter Jeffrey Kim. “We just have to keep playing.”
Red hot before the break, Adam Frazier was 0 for his first 7 before doubling Sunday in his final at- bat. Josh Bell had two hits Saturday but was 0 for 7 the other two days. Hitting .156 in his previous 11 games ( nine starts), Bryan Reynolds picked up two hits Sunday, but he also killed a two- on, one- out rally in the seventh by grounding into a double play.
“I don’t think it’s a problem,” Kang added. “You can’t always be good at hitting every time.”
In the bullpen, Michael Feliz struggled finding the plate Friday. Ditto for Kyle Crick, whom Huntington talked about on his radio show Sunday. “We have to get Kyle Crick going,” the GM said.
Huntington isn’t wrong, per se, but the Pirates need to get more than just Crick going if they want to avoid a post- break slump that shortcircuits their season.
“It’s a tough first series out of the break for us,” Williams said. “However, we have an opportunity to go to St. Louis [ Monday], win the first one and go from there.
“We’ve got all the confidence in the world in our guys. We’ve been going on some great runs this season and in seasons prior. Once we catch fire and we get going, we can be a really fun team to watch play.”