Pirates drop road finale: 'Grinding through it'

To begin the final week of the season, the Pirates closed out their road slate for 2021 in Cincinnati on Monday afternoon.

The outcome was all too familiar for Pittsburgh, which struggled away from home -- as the team has for the majority of the season -- in a 13-1 loss to the Reds at Great American Ball Park.

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The Pirates’ road finale came one day later than was originally intended, as Monday’s contest in Cincinnati was a makeup game from Wednesday's postponed contest. But the Reds started right on time against starter Connor Overton, who needed 39 pitches to get out of the first inning. By then, he’d allowed four runs on six hits, including a towering two-run homer by Joey Votto that just creeped over the wall, and effectively put the game out of reach thanks to Reiver Sanmartin’s strong debut for Cincinnati.

“Honestly, when [Votto] hit it, I turned back and I thought it was going to be 20 or 30 feet from the warning track, and it happened to make its way over,” Overton said. “But you know, we knew coming in that this park plays short and balls in the air are dangerous here.”

Overton, who was primarily a reliever up until his tenure with the Pirates, was slated to face the Reds on Wednesday prior to the rainout, then started Thursday in Philadelphia before taking the mound Monday in Cincinnati. His usage as a starter is thanks, in large part, to an unfortunate trend for the Bucs.

As the season winds down, so has the team’s pitching depth. Four of the six options the Pirates had toward the beginning of September -- Steven Brault, JT Brubaker, Dillon Peters and Bryse Wilson -- are on the injured list. Other starters from earlier in the year like Chase De Jong and Trevor Cahill are out for the season, meaning relievers have had to carry the bulk of more than a handful of games this month.

“Nobody really prepares for this,” said reliever Cody Ponce, who allowed four unearned runs in three innings. “You never like to see -- whether it's a starter or a bullpen guy -- go down. You always want the health of all your teammates to be at the highest.”

The situation has affected how manager Derek Shelton has had to manage not only probables -- two of the Pirates’ three games vs. the Cubs this week list "TBA" in the starter’s slot -- but in-game situations. Shelby Miller was given two innings and an at-bat vs. the Reds, a decision that would have been much rarer earlier this season.

“We talked about making an adjustment with something he was doing, and he went out and worked on it,” Shelton said. “With the fact that we have two TBAs, we have a lot of innings to fill. That he was able to suck up that second inning was really important for us. I appreciate him doing it.”

It was a tough game to stomach for the Pirates to close out their road schedule in 2021, but it was also somewhat reflective of how they fared away from home. Pittsburgh finished the season with a 24-57 record in away games, tied for the second-fewest wins by any MLB team on the road behind Arizona (20).

The Pirates also had a particularly bad time at Great American Ball Park. By allowing five homers on Monday, the Bucs’ total yielded at GABP increased to 26 this season. That’s tied for the most afforded at any visiting park in team history. The 1956 Pirates gave up 26 at the Polo Grounds.

But five in one game? How much was that a product of pitching depletion and how much was that a product of the Reds’ power potential?

“I think it’s a combination of both,” Shelton said. “I wouldn’t take anything away from Cincinnati, because they swing the bats and they have good hitters. I do think maybe it caught up with us a little bit. That’s no excuse. We didn’t execute pitches, and they hit them.”

The Pirates have no time for excuses, as they try to finish 2021 on as high of a note as possible. The revised pitching group will be key to that.

“The bullpen is taxed, obviously, but we’re grinding through it and we’re trying to get through it,” Overton said. “It’s the end of the year, and everyone is kind of fatigued, mentally and physically. So we’re trying our best to get through it.”