Miracles run out
Plan for 2020 rotation does not inspire much confidence
It appears Pirates general manager Neal Huntington — if he’s still on the job — will apply one of my favorite adages to his 2020 rotation. If it’s broke, don’t fix it.
I use that one all the time with household items. It’s quite freeing. But I wouldn’t necessarily apply it to starting pitching, especially if my pitching had fallen apart like the Pirates’.
Despite the proliferation of highpowered bullpens and the modern belief that six decent innings from your starter constitutes a heroic effort, starting pitching remains the key to success. The Pirates are living proof. This franchise has enjoyed just four winning seasons this millennium: 2013, ’ 14, ’ 15 and
’ 18. Not coincidentally, those also were the years the rotation posted its best earned run averages — and only ERAs under 4.00.
This decidedly is not one of those years. Going into Wednesday’s game against Washington, Pirates starters had a 5.29 ERA — their worst mark since the 105- loss season of 2010. That number only went up when Joe Musgrove played nail to the Nationals’ hammers while a gaggle of red- clad Washington fans made the only noise heard in the morgue that was PNC Park.
Other than Mitch Keller, who has an 8.86 ERA in five starts, there is no hot prospect on the horizon. Which of course raises all kinds of questions.
Two of them …
• How come the Pirates haven’t drafted and developed more starting pitching? How is that possible?
• What about the team’s Dominican Academy, which it has talked about so often and pumped so many resources into? Might it produce a starting pitcher one of these decades?
One might say this constitutes a crisis as we look ahead to 2020. That
was the word I used with Huntington on July 31 — and this was before Jameson Taillon was declared out until 2021. He countered with the idea that, well, all his guys might just bounce back next year.
Huntington reiterated the idea on his radio show this past weekend.
“How do we get Joe Musgrove to continue to turn that corner?” he said. “How do we continue to get Chris Archer to be Chris Archer again? How do we get Mitch Keller to take that next step forward? How do we help Trevor Williams go back to being as good he was during the second half of last season?”
He continued, providing question after question, which fairly describes his rotation. Archer is again a major one, after leaving his start Tuesday after one inning. The best the club’s director of sports medicine, Todd Tomczyk, could offer Wednesday was this: “Our doctors, at the initial stages of this, are optimistic that this is going to be short term.”
But back to Huntington, who continued with the queries: “Can we continue to get Steve Brault to push this forward … is there another [ Francisco] Liriano out there? Or another J. A. Happ, [ Edinson] Volquez? We’ll explore that. We also get Chad Kuhl back to compete for a spot next season.” That’s nice.
But miracles only come around so often. The biggest factor in the Pirates’ threeyear renaissance, by far, was the highly unexpected star turns of Liriano, Jeff Locke ( he made the All- Star Game in 2013, you’ll recall), Volquez, Happ and others. Also, the Pirates had no right to expect that A. J. Burnett would miraculously regain ace form after a brutal year in Philadelphia, posting a 1.99 ERA through two weeks of July in 2015.
Soon enough, the miracles ran out. Along came Jon Niese, Juan Nicasio and Ryan Vogelsong in 2016. The Pirates had obviously come to believe they could rescue anyone — living or dead — and make a decent starting pitcher out of him.
There have been some signs of life since. Last year marked only the fourth time since 2000 the Pirates rotation had a sub- 4 ERA ( 3.99), but that was mostly on account of Taillon finally finding good health and Williams turning into Orel Hershiser for three months.
Like a lot of people, I thought this rotation had a chance to be outstanding. I was wrong. And there was no depth.
But I am looking forward to the matchup of staff aces Thursday.
Max Scherzer versus Steven Brault.