I spent most of yesterday’s game sitting out in the sun on campus, checking my phone obsessively every ten minutes or so to see how the Pirates and Reds were progressing. The approximate roller coaster of emotions was like this:
- OH MY GOD LIRIANO SCORED HIS FIRST RUN EVER AND I DIDN’T EVEN PUT MY TWITTER PASSWORD INTO THIS NEW PHONE YET. Oh, and hey, the Pirates are winning 4-3 now. Surely Liriano and the bullpen will hold this lead down and the Reds will fold up like a cheap suit.
- Damn, it’s 4-4.
- HOLY CRAP NEIL WALKER TRIPLE THAT’S LIKE THE EQUIVALENT OF ME HITTING A TRIPLE IN SLOW-PITCH SOFTBALL 6-4 THIS ONE’S IN THE BANK FOR SURE NOW THAT THE BULLPEN SUCKS SOMEWHAT LESS THAN IT USED TO.
- Damn, it’s 6-6. Damn, Holdzkom. Damn
I got back to a computer by the tenth inning, just in time to see John Axford start walking everybody, then be relieved by Bobby LaFromboise, who promptly walked Brayan Pena except that Jim Joyce saved him from himself with a terrible strike two call on a 3-1 pitch. Pena popped up to Gregory Polanco, shallow enough to keep the runner at third, and I said to myself, “Geez, a walkoff walk would’ve been a terrible way to lose this division after all that.”
And then Ramon Santiago (yeah, that old utility infielder who used to be a Tiger and apparently isn’t anymore but is somehow still in baseball) hit a walkoff grand slam.
From that point, what I thought was this:
How nice of the bullpen to show up and remind us all of what they’re capable of literally four days before the playoffs start. How could we all have been stupid enough to convince ourselves that an Indy-Leaguer and LOOGY that nobody else wanted fixed this problem? AND OH GEEZ WHAT ABOUT ALL OF THOSE ONE-RUN LOSSES TO THE CARDINALS THIS SEASON HAS BEEN SO FRUSTRATING AND ALSO SO AWESOME STUPID BASEBALL.
And so I went about the rest of my day assuming that the Pirates had lost the division and the Cardinals would wrap the NL Central up in Arizona on Saturday night. Around 8:30, I headed out to a bar to meet up with some friends. We managed to get a seat directly in front of a TV with football on, so the Cardinals’ Diamondbacks’ score tortured me for most of the night; the D’Backs took an early 2-0 lead, the Cardinals tied it at 2, and it stayed 2-2 for most of the game until Mark Trumbo’s three-run homer put the Diamondbacks up for good. My internal monologue returned.
Well, this is just great. Nothing like a nice little microcosm for the season all shoveled into Game 161. The Pirates trip over their own feet with their bullpen, they try to hand the division to somebody else, and nobody else seems to want to take it.
It’s not that I don’t want the Pirates to win the NL Central or that I was rooting for the Cardinals to win last night (though this was a lively topic of discussion at the bar last night), it’s that yesterday’s loss to the Reds made the Pirates very, very distant longshots to win the National League Central without eliminating them. In order for the Pirates to win the Central now, these three things would have to happen in order:
- The Pirates have to beat Johnny Cueto this afternoon.
- Adam Wainwright will have to lose to the Diamondbacks this evening.
- Jeff Locke will have to pitch the Pirates to victory at Busch Stadium tomorrow night in a one-game playoff.
Those odds are not good. They are, in reality, much closer to zero than the 12.5% chance that Baseball Prospectus gives them, I think. And yet, as soon as the Cardinals lost last night I knew that Clint Hurdle would decide to pitch Gerrit Cole today and Edinson Volquez in the Wild Card Game on Wednesday.
And so, of course, while I’ve been sitting down writing this post (and booking flights back to Pittsburgh this week, because I’m not missing Pirate playoff games two years in a row), Hurdle announced Cole as today’s starter against Cueto because of course he did. He said that he talked to the veterans and that the players want to take a shot at the division today because of course they do. I’ve been concerned about the Pirates’ plan to roll with the rotation as-is until the last second to see how the division plays out because I’ve never expected Hurdle or the players to want to do anything but take every last shot at winning the division. I don’t want Hurdle or the players do want to do anything but take every last shot at winning the division. Obviously it’s their job to leave everything on the field.
Someone on the coaching staff or the front office should’ve pointed out on the last off-day, though, that this treads on very dangerous ground and that the rotation could’ve been slightly adjusted way back then to put Liriano on regular rest for the Wild Card Game without taking anything at all away from the drive to win the division. Doing so then would be making the decision without the all of the emotions that are now tied up in trying to win the division today.
I know that focusing on this as much as I have and that my lack of faith in Edinson Volquez doesn’t sync up with a lot of other Pirate fans, so let me try to be as clear as possible about this. Obviously the Pirates can beat the Giants on Wednesday with Edinson Volquez on the mound. The Pirates’ lineup should put fear into every left-handed pitcher on the planet not named Clayton Kershaw right now; Jordy Mercer and Starling Marte are both destroying the ball right now and their ability to crush lefties has a lot to do with that. Andrew McCutchen and Josh Harrison and Russell Martin all hit lefties hard on most nights. It’s possible that they only need Volquez to be adequate to win on Wednesday. My problem is just this: Volquez is not the Pirates’ best pitcher and he’s not their second best pitcher. He is the pitcher that’s most likely to walk two hitters and follow that up with a three-run home run. The Wild Card Game is on the schedule and it’s been obvious for quite some time that it’s the Pirates’ most likely destination. When that happens, I feel like it’s on the team to be as prepared as they possibly can for that specific game. All you can do in a one-game playoff is tilt the table in your direction as much as you possible can, and then see where the cards fall. In my opinion, the Pirates didn’t do a good job of this, and so I’m disappointed. I still think they can win, of course, but I also think that they’ve added an extra obstacle that simply did not need to be in their way.
Anyway, on to today’s game. The Pirates are going to take their best shot at the NL Central today. It is a real testament to this particular group of players that they are still in the division race on Day 162, even though they’re obvious long shots with the second and third best pitchers in the National League are working against them today. Gerrit Cole seems to thrive in big situations (which is PART OF THE REASON I’M SO FRUSTRATED THAT HE’S PITCHING TODAY AND NOT WEDNESDAY RIGHT NOW but whatever), and so if there was one guy on the staff that I thought might go toe-to-toe with Cueto today, it’d probably be him. Hurdle elected to roll the dice and try to win the Central. All we can do now is watch the games and root for it to happen.
There is one other bit of drama that’s not related to the division race today. Josh Harrison is currently juuuust behind Justin Morneau in the race for the NL batting title. Morneau is currently hitting .319, while Harrison is at .318. Since the Pirates play before the Rockies, chances are good that if Harrison doesn’t hit well against Cueto, Morneau will simply not play this afternoon. SB Nation has a handy chart of the two players’ batting averages through every conceivable scenario today. The quick-and-dirty of it is that Harrison needs two hits in his first three at-bats to move ahead of where Morneau is now. Walt Weiss sat Morneau out last night, and I’m sure he won’t hesitate to do so again, nor would he hesitate to pull Morneau if he gets a hit in his first at-bat. Basically, I think Weiss will pull whatever shenanigans necessary to help Morneau today, which means that it’s on Harrison to collect a bunch of hits to give himself a chance to eek ahead. It seems pretty unlikely at this point. I suppose that’s the one drawback to having something to play for at this point. I’ll take a playoff berth and Josh Harrison in second place in the batting race over being the Rockies any day of the week.
First pitch today is at 1:10. There’s an awful lot on the line on Day 162. I might not be completely on board with what the Pirates are doing today, but I can’t say that I’m disappointed that they’re in a place where these decisions have to be made.
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