Pirates Insider Podcast, Episode 39 (7/9 vs. Braves)

The Pirates are 10 games into a stretch of 22 straight against teams .500 are better. What have we learned? Furthermore, what's going on with Mitch Keller and Dennis Santana? The Pirates have shown a lot of fight, and their offense is really good. But they have to find a way to stabilize the bullpen. Jason Mackey breaks it all down here.

Transcript

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All right, good morning. What's going on, Pirates fans? This is the Pirates Insider Podcast. I am your host, Jason Mackey, coming to you from PNC Park after a 10-5 loss to the Atlanta Braves. And it was another frustrating one. Mitch Keller started, did not go terribly well for Keller. Give the Pirates credit. Once again, they battled back. They made things difficult. They went 3-0 to 3-2. I believe it was 6-6-2 to 6-5. It was a good game. It was a solid game, but the Pirates not have they did not have enough fight in here. And I'm double checking that 6-5 because I'm second guessing myself. I want to make sure I give you guys accurate information here on the podcast. Yeah, 6-5. 6-2 to 6-5. Anyway, the point of what I'm talking about here today is sort of taking stock of this team amid its 22-game run against Teams 500 or better. And what I posted 10 games into this pivotal stretch, what have the Pirates learned about themselves? Well, not to bury my own lead here, but it's sort of what we've seen all along. After today, and I'll talk about today's game a little bit because it folds into it nicely, the Pirates are 47 and 47. During this 10-game run, guess what their record is? Five and five. I didn't give you a chance to guess on that one, but that's okay. We've seen a little bit of good and a little bit of frustration. This team gets just close enough to tease you, and then they pull the carpet out from under you, their tablecloth out, or they're pulling something. It's certainly frustrating, but if you want to look at it glass half full, this team also has enough, I think, in key areas to compete. It's a matter of whether they're able to solve their problems, whether they're able to do something to really get going on some sort of streak. I'm sort of amazed by the Pirates if you look at their season as like a horizontal plot line. Two nights ago, they had a three-game winning streak snapped. That was their first three-game winning streak in some time. It had been two wins, two wins, maybe one win. Their last winning streak of longer than three games comes back in late May and early July, early June after they swept the twins at home, won the first game in Houston. At the same time, the Pirates haven't really had any sort of extended losing streaks. To their credit, they've battled back. They've been resilient. They've had one losing streak of more than two games since mid-April. Mid-May, I should say, excuse me. But either way, this team has shown the ability to battle, to fight, to respond, to address players lost via injury. Right now we're talking about Connor Griffin being out, O'Neil Cruz, Spencer Horwitz, Andy Rodriguez, and yet they're still here. They are scoring runs. They're scoring runs at an impressive clip. Some of what I wrote about was their home run total. They've already surpassed their home run total from last year. They're at 120. They had 117 last year. They're scoring runs. When I look at that, I think, okay, here's a team that's capable. This team can compete, but they just haven't put it all together. A lot of times it's been the bullpen. Since June 29th, the Pirates have scored 63 runs, fourth most in Major League Baseball. There's still some games happening, but I mean that gives you an idea. Brian Reynolds talked after this when he said, we have a really good offense. We easily have a top five offense. It's pretty exciting. It is. It is. And that's something that I can say I've learned. I knew before this 10-game stretch, but I think it's really been heightened. The amount of fight, the amount of offense that the Pirates have. I think about that first game in Philly that was lousy. They came back from a five-run deficit, win on the road at Citizens Bank Park. That's a really good win. They split a series with the Phillies. Great. They weren't good that first night in Washington. They bounced back, scored 18 runs the next two games. Fantastic. Ryan O'Hearn had three home runs and 10 RBIs. They have a bunch of guys having outstanding years. Brian Reynolds' OPS is up to 872. They homered three more times in this one. If we want to talk about the maybe call him the most important player, the MVP, whatever, doesn't mean much because they lost the game, but Jake Mangnum was outstanding today. Had four hits, a home run, a double, drove in three runs. Jake Mangum has been fantastic. Dating back to May 30th, Magnum's hitting 360. That's second in all of Major League Baseball, has an 868 OPS during that time. You lose O'Neill Cruz and all of a sudden you're going to answer that with 360? The Pirates had major concerns at third base. What's Nick Gonzalez done? He solidified the position. Since that same date, he's hitting 331. Tyler Callahan has actually been a pretty good, useful left-handed bench bat. Great. But we're still looking at the record. And I left a few guys off. Even Jared Triolo, I cited that one. He gets a lot of criticism, catches a lot of flack, but Triolo's actually been reasonably productive as a 740 OPS over his past 19. Andy Rodriguez has added some offense before he went on the injured list. There's been a lot of encouraging performances, team-wide, individual. Brandon Lau should be an all-star. And I'm talking just positioned players here. But why hasn't it worked? Well, the bullpen has been the elephant in the room. The bullpen has dragged this group down. The bullpen did it again today. It was a combination of Mitch Keller's short start start, the bullpen having to cover six innings, and neither of them were good enough. Mitch Keller used 72 pitches to get through three innings. He walked two, struck out three. Over his past 12 starts, his ERA is 7.03. That's not going to work. I like Mitch Keller as much as anybody who's around and covered him. I have an endless amount of respect for Mitch Keller. But you need better results than that. I like the move they've made with Karma Majinski. I think it makes a lot of sense. Have they used it optimally? No, they haven't. We've seen them run into situations the past two days where they really could have used Karma Majinski. Instead, he was pitching in the Paul Skens game. I do understand him pitching to nail down that win. I get it. But I'd like to have him be a little bit more flexible in that role. And I understand there's some nuance there and how you want that role to work. I also understand, I think this is an important one. If you're having to replace a starting pitcher, Carmen's your guy. And you got to keep him stretched out. But the Pirates ran into a scenario where it kind of reached the end of the rope for them, it seemed like. And so they're within a run, ninth inning. They go to Dennis Santana. And there's two lefties up. They use Gregory Soto to start that inning. It's 9-1-2. Soto does his job, gets through it. It's 3-4-5. Olson, Baldwin, DuBon. First two hit left-handed. The move there theoretically would have been to use Mason Montgomery. They've matched him up against left-handers all season long. Don Kelly did not do that. Don Kelly decided to give Dennis Santana a chance. Santana at times has pitched better. He's also gotten bitten by the home run bug quite a bit. When he hasn't put up a zero, we've seen Santana get behind in counts, groove a pitch, gets hit. His past four appearances, he's been scored upon. It's included a home run. He's also put up zeros in 10 of the past 13. So they're kind of a situation where what do you do with Dennis? This guy's been so good for the Pirates. Four war accumulated over the past two years, according to baseball reference. He has a contract, $3.5 million. You're paying him to do a job. You want to try to get him back in a position to do the job. So Don Kelly, the Pirates, elected this as the opportunity. They're going to trust Dennis Santana with a little bit more. Didn't work out. Walk, single, sacrifice, walk, strikes out Austin Riley, and then Mikey Scremsey takes him deep, grand slam, basically the game over. And it's not just Dennis Santana. I'm not trying to isolate on one reliever. Their entire bullpen is a 453 ERA. That's 23rd in Major League Baseball. That's not going to work. They've blown 17 saves. That's tied for fifth most. It's not just been Dennis Santana at all. In June, Montgomery and Soto struggled quite a bit. Isaac Matson went down to AAA. Justin Lawrence was DFA'd. You can go through that. Evan Sisk is currently hurt. Those are guys probably outside of Cisk they counted upon to really play important roles this season. Soto and Montgomery have kind of worked out, but you can't keep going to the same guys. That was Don Kelly's explanation for why you went with Dennis Santana in the ninth. He wanted to preserve Santana for the Brewers or preserve Montgomery for the Brewers series. I know some people are going to take exception to that. I disagree with it to an extent. I'd like to see them go after the game right in front of them. Worry about the other one when it gets here. You've got a chance to win a series against the Braves. If you're shorthanded against the Brewers, you figure it out then. Maybe you ask them to pitch three days in a row. Maybe you go back to Carmen. I don't know what the solution is. But I know with this offense, if you can keep it within a run, give that offense an opportunity to get hot, you might have something. I also understand the argument you can't keep going to the same guys. Somebody else has to step up. So anyway, when I talk about this in a larger picture, I mean this absolutely has to get fixed. This is what is prohibiting them from going on an extended losing winning streak. This is what's keeping the pirates bobbing along at near 500. At some point that needs to happen. At some point, they need to really get hot and build, sustain some momentum. The bullpen is not allowing that to happen. They have to do something. And I don't know if that is, and this relates to the starting pitching in one way for me. If you want to give a different look to Mitch Keller, I'm not saying permanently banish him from the rotation, but like maybe one time through, have Carmen start. And have Mitch kind of as that tweener piggyback type. Give him a different look. Explore something. You can't keep doing the same things over and over again. And that's kind of where the pirates are at right now. I also threw this out there in what I wrote. It's interesting to me because we keep hearing that the pirates are getting a lot of interest on that compensatory pick, number 34 overall. You can trade that. I don't know what kind of value it's going to carry, but that is a move this weekend, and that pick expires. You know, you use it, or you know, you either select a player or you trade it. There's nothing you can do with it beyond Sunday. Could the Pirates leverage that for something? Maybe. I hope so. Some way, shape, or form, they have to find a way to figure out the bullpen. It is easily the biggest, most identifiable shortcoming. And Mitch Keller, like I said, is part of it. We talked to Keller post-game too about the all-star break being good for him, maybe get away from it a little bit, drill down into some mechanical things. I certainly agree with that. Um, I I would I would like to see Keller change his approach a little bit. When he was at his best, he was very sinker heavy, he's kind of gotten away from that. I brought up in the piece I wrote too uh some things going on with the starters. Jared Jones was perfect last time out. You know about that. He was fantastic, really like the place that he's in. Braxton Ashcraft, he's an all-star as he should be. Bubba Chandler was really good before his last start. Maybe hope that that isn't a, you know, hope that that was just a one-off. And Paul Skeens was very, very not good in Philadelphia. I don't want maybe not very bad, but I mean it just looked concerning. We come back here to Pittsburgh first game of this homestand, and Skeens looked like Skeens, filled up the zone with fastballs, used a splinker. I'm not gonna waste time worrying about Paul Skeens. But the Pirates need to figure out this pitching situation. They need to get some help and they need to find a way because you have guys coming back. You have an opportunity here in front of you. At some point, I I do, you know, I it's exciting and worrisome that they're gonna go one way or the other. I don't think you can bob along at 500 for this long. There's either going to be an extended winning stretch or an extended losing stretch. Obviously, if you're a Pirates fan, you're rooting for the first one. And getting Spencer Horwitz O'Neil Cruz back, that's obviously going to be a shot in the arm for the offense, but the bullpen can't keep doing this. The offense is scoring enough runs to win most nights. I know everybody was kind of bent out of shape two nights ago about, you know, taking Jared Jones out. Why do you go to Mason Montgomery? What do you do? What's Don Kelly doing? The offense didn't score a run. That's also sort of a topic because that hasn't happened all that often. The offense, more times than not, has scored. So anyway, we're 10 games into this run. I don't know if it's told us anything. It tells me kind of what I already know. This team has some exciting things. It's right there. It showed fight. Guys have done a good job filling in spots. I think there's some promise with the starting rotation, and the bullpen absolutely must improve. All right, everybody, thanks so much for listening. Reminder uh these podcasts, we're doing a Monday through Friday uh cadence. We'll use that word. Um, it's just too hard with trying to cram in radio the next day. I'll be in Philadelphia this weekend, but I will be back with another one of these things on Monday morning, recapping the futures game as well as the weekend series against the Brewer. Thanks so much for listening. Check it out, Pirates Insider Podcast, available on Apple, iTunes, everywhere you get your podcasts. You know how to find it. Thanks so much, everybody. Jason Mackey. Talk to you Monday.