SAN FRANCISCO -- The Pirates know who they can be. The Pirates know what they can do. They’ve spent the last several weeks trying to tap into that early-season magic, but following another loss, the search remains active.
With a 14-4 loss to the Giants on Monday at Oracle Park, their largest margin of defeat this season, the Pirates sit below .500 for the first time since April 2. After beginning the year with a 20-9 record, seemingly cruising for all of April, the Pirates still find themselves in the midst of a laborious 6-18 stretch. The Pirates’ season, thus far, has operated in extremes; in San Francisco, they’re searching for equanimity.
“We have to continue to keep coming in and putting in the work, putting in the time, putting in the effort,” said Rich Hill. “The teams that do that and have that no-quit mentality continue to fight and put themselves in good positions to win.
“But let’s face [the] facts where we’re at right now. We’re a game under .500. As for myself, I can speak to underperforming and need to perform better.”
The Pirates were not without their flashes of the team that took baseball by storm last month in their 10-run loss to the Giants.
Jack Suwinski joined Barry Bonds as the only other player in Oracle Park’s 23-year history to homer into McCovey Cove twice in the same game, a feat that Bonds achieved twice. While Suwinski launched his first homer against Anthony DeSclafani, Suwinski mashed his second Splash of the afternoon against position player Brett Wisely. Along with Suwinski, Tucupita Marcano continued his recent stretch of hot hitting, notching his first three-hit game of the season, while Ji Hwan Bae extended his on-base streak to 10 games.
As a collective, however, the Pirates couldn’t put together a complete ballgame.
Rich Hill allowed six earned runs across six innings, five of those runs coming in San Francisco’s five-run fifth inning that Austin Slater capped off with a two-run home run. Rookie Cody Bolton grinded through an even more forgettable afternoon, allowing eight earned runs as he recorded just one out. Rodolfo Castro and Josh Palacios each committed errors as well.
“It’s a long season,” Suwinski said. “I think we’re going to face challenges just like every other team, but we’ve seen flashes of what we can do when we’re good together. We just have to go back to getting those little wins and playing good team baseball, which we’re definitely capable of. It’s just a stretch that we have to keep going, keep grinding and just be there for each other.”
"We're dealing with a bunch of young players,” said manager Derek Shelton. “When it's going well with young players, everything is OK. When things go a little bit awry, we have to make sure we stay on track. … We've still got to continue to learn, we've still got to continue to get better, and we've got to get back on task a little bit."
The Pirates will have two more games against the Giants before closing out their West Coast road trip and their month. Pittsburgh can salvage something from this forgettable month should it take the next two games against San Francisco and avoid going the entire month without a series victory.
Tuesday presents yet another opportunity for the Pirates to turn the tides. Johan Oviedo, who has struggled in first innings, will have to face a Giants offense that entered Monday with the seventh-best wRC+ in first innings (123). As for the offense, they’ll have to navigate an assortment of different relievers as the Giants roll with a bullpen game, John Brebbia serving as the opener. The Pirates encountered a bullpen game at the very beginning of this month against the Rays, who used seven relievers and yielded just one run.
“[We’re] just trying to keep the vibes up, picking each other up, coming in each day knowing that it’s a new day, a new opportunity,” Suwinski said. “That’s one of the good things about being in a stretch like this is that we get to play another game every day. So, it’s another day that we can show up, turn it around, get things going back to the way we want playing good, hard baseball with intent and strength behind it.”