Bold move for Archer not making the grade
If Chris Archer were lucky, the Pirates wouldn’t have botched a run-down play that cost him an unearned run Tuesday night and Bryan Reynolds would have made a great catch in left field instead of having the ball bounce off the top of his glove for a home run.
If Archer were really lucky, he would have been traded for Clint
Hurdle and Scott Brown instead of Tyler Glasnow and Austin Meadows.
Archer had another rough night in a 5-0 loss to the Colorado Rockies. He has been mostly mediocre-to-bad since coming here in July in Neal Huntington’s boldest trade. Glasnow went to Tampa Bay, where he
was a leading candidate for the American League Cy Young Award before a forearm strain knocked him out two weeks ago, along with Meadows, who is tearing it up with nine home runs, 24 RBIs and a 1.081 OPS.
Not exactly the stuff of the Hurdle-for-Brown trade between Kansas City and Cincinnati after the 1981 season.
“[Brown] didn’t have to worry about living up to much. He was traded for a stiff,” Hurdle said.
Brown, a country boy from Louisiana with a big arm, was said to be so backward that he didn’t know what a curveball was when he was with the Reds in 1981, his only big-league season. “Where do I get me one of those curveballs?” legend has Brown asking Reds staffers. They told him what to do, so he went off to a sporting goods store to buy one.
Tuesday night didn’t seem like the right time to tell Archer that story. I don’t think he would have found much funny after giving up four runs — three earned — in five innings. It was the fifth time in his seven starts this season that he failed to go six innings, the 11th time in his 17 starts since joining the Pirates. He is 1-4 with a 5.55 earned run average this season, 4-7 with a 4.81 ERA since coming here.
Archer wouldn’t be human if he wasn’t aware of how much better Meadows is doing and the great things Glasnow did, a 6-1 record with a 1.86 ERA and 0.91 WHIP. He also wouldn’t be human if he didn’t press to try to justify the trade. He has to be pressing, right?
“There’s really no reason for me to press,” Archer said. “I’ve over six years in the league. I’ve accomplished a lot. Little rough patch is nothing, man, honestly …
“Those guys are balling out. I’ve seen their success. It really has no impact on me. It has no bearing. I’m here. I’m capable of doing really good things myself.”
But when?
Archer didn’t get a break when the Rockies scored their first run in the second inning when Francisco Cervelli’s run-down throw hit Daniel Murphy in the helmet. It also would have been nice for Archer if Reynolds had been able to make the catch on Trevor Story’s home run in the third to prevent a 20 deficit, although Archer acknowledged, “The dude hit it, like, a long ways.”
But Archer had only himself to blame for the Rockies’ two runs in the fourth inning. He walked Ian Desmond and Tony Wolters — throwing eight consecutive balls — and gave up a two-out, two-run triple to Charlie Blackmon.
“Giving up hits, giving up the homer, you know that’s one thing,” Archer said. “But throwing eight straight balls is something you can’t do in the big leagues. Teams are going to take advantage.”
The Pirates need more from Archer, especially now when they are down starters Jameson Taillon and Trevor Williams and are looking at 13 games in the next 12 days before their next day off June 6. Hurdle said they will start reliever Montana DuRapau tonight against the Rockies and hope DuRapau can give the team two or three innings before the rest of the bullpen takes over.
“That’s a good question, I don’t know,” Hurdle said when asked if he thought Archer is pressing because of Glasnow and Meadows. “You’re not going to stick your head in the sand and [not] acknowledge the two guys we traded. That’s part of trades. [But] I encourage guys you really don’t need to go knocking on those doors. There’s really no good answers …
“My encouragement is always going to get back to the point of controlling what you can control. We’ve always encouraged Chris this is an opportunity to be the best version of him.”
The Pirates will give the ball to Archer again Sunday against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
They have no other choice. Just about everybody would give the Archer trade an “F” at this point, but Hurdle said that could change.
It had better change quickly if the Pirates are going to make the summer interesting.
“Grade it out a year from now … you grade it out two years from now, you might have another grade,” Hurdle said.
Of course, that’s true. But that doesn’t make that “F” any easier to take now.