Pirates GM gets lesson in what is important to fans — winning
SAN DIEGO — A piece of wood splintered as soon as Padres right fielder Wil Myers made contact with a Duane Underwood Jr. pitch in the bottom of the eighth inning on Friday night. As the ball found some open grass in the outfield, the piece of wood sailed away from the play, out of the picture.
It felt a little like the Pirates’ chances of opening this three-game series against one of the better teams in the National League with a win. Pittsburgh pushed early and looked really good ... but ultimately had things bust apart late during a 4-3 loss at Petco Park.
Myers’ single drove in the goahead run after Underwood Jr. walked third baseman Manny Machado and allowed another single to first baseman Eric Hosmer to start. It also came after the Pirates had a 3-0 lead through five, only to watch the Padres roar back.
The Pirates also incurred an unfortunate incident when Michael Chavis left the game with an injury, then Josh VanMeter made an error at first base in the sixth inning, extending the inning before the Padres hit a three-run homer.
With the Pirates ahead, 3-0, in the sixth inning, two of the first three Padres reached base against Jose Quintana, who was at 96 pitches whenever manager Derek Shelton pulled him in favor of Wil Crowe.
One of Pittsburgh’s most reliable relievers this season, Crowe got right fielder Wil Myers to fly out to right before making a mistake to designated hitter Luke Voit. Crowe left a 2-2 slider up in the zone, and Voit made him pay, driving it 385 feet over the fence in
losses and extended rebuild — want to hear. Cherington also used more than 500 words on the first part of his answer and never really talked about areas where he’d like to see the Pirates improve, which is probably more important than the encouraging stuff, at least when it comes to those listening.
When Cherington met with reporters on Tuesday afternoon at PNC Park, he brought up some of the blowback his comments created. He took this opportunity to say what he probably should have said all along.
“All we want to do is win baseball games in Pittsburgh,” Cherington said. “And so when the outcomes aren’t that way, we’re all frustrated. Our fans are frustrated, and we share that frustration.
“I love that there’s enough passion here that people are frustrated by that.”
Cherington did reiterate that he feels like the Pirates are making meaningful progress in the aforementioned areas — coaching, preparing players, clubhouse culture, deployment, that sort of stuff. But it’s equally as important to remember to whom he’s speaking.
Not Brown. Not even reporters covering the team. But fans who pay money to see the Pirates play, people who invest time, emotion and money and make this the bottom-line business that it is; they don’t want to hear about deployment or strategy unless it comes with wins and division titles.
That’s not to say the
Pirates shouldn’t feel encouraged. They absolutely should. By the farm system. By their most recent draft. By their unconventional approach to pitching. The development changes they’ve made with how players are coaching and brought along. That there are still enough people in this city who gen
-uinely want them to be good and are taking an interest in this process.
There’s finally a clear plan in place.
Yet where the Pirates are also puts Cherington, manager Derek Shelton and the players in a tough spot. To use a Cherington term, the only things that matters are
outcomes. Those haven’t been good enough, so nobody really wants to hear about the rest.
Unless the people in charge explicitly convey that they, too, are ticked off by the Pirates not winning more games.
“We believe we’ve spent time really looking at every
aspect of baseball operations and trying to find ways to improve how we do our work,” Cherington said. “Until that adds up to better results, we’ll all be frustrated. These guys in the clubhouse are as frustrated as anybody when the outcomes aren’t good.
“We’ve also got to try to
help each other compartmentalize that, show up the next day and focus on the stuff we can do to control that progress. That’s what I was trying to get to on Sunday.”