PITTSBURGH – There was no update on Gerrit Cole today from PNC Park from Clint Hurdle before the game, or from Pirates General Manager Neal Huntington, who talked with the media before the game, including our own Alan Saunders.
“We’re still working through gathering information and thoughts [about] what’s our best course of action,” Huntington said on Cole. “Any time a starter leaves a start early, it’s awful tough to envision him taking the mound again in five days. Because of the off day, if we did put him on the disabled list, he would only miss two starts. We’re working through that. We want to be respectful of Gerrit, who wants the ball and wants to go compete, and to be respectful of our desire and need for him to make 30-plus starts this year. If we can knock this out in 15 days, we might be better served to knock it out in 15 days. We’re not there yet, but his next start is almost certainly not going to happen.”
If Cole goes on the disabled list, Huntington said that Jameson Taillon would take his spot in the rotation. Taillon made a spot start last week, then was optioned to the minors so that the Pirates could get bullpen help. The earliest he can return is next Sunday, although he can return at any time if the Pirates place someone on the disabled list. Taillon is currently slated to start on Tuesday in Indianapolis. Huntington discussed the spot start last week for Taillon, and where they see him on being ready.
“In Jameson’s case, much like when Gerrit came up, we felt like we were on the edge of the readiness curve,” Huntington said. “In a perfect world, we would have left them in Triple-A longer. In Gerrit’s case, we had an injury create an opening. In Jameson’s case, we had a doubleheader the created the opening. The intent was to get him back down to Triple-A, let him take what he learned from his one outing up here and apply it, whether it was his two-seam usage, changeup usage.”
I view Taillon as being ready, and feel he should be up for good right now. When he was sent down, it made sense because the Pirates needed bullpen help, and at most, they would only miss one start from him. Now, they might not even miss that start. Huntington said that if Taillon goes come up, they’d hope he never goes back “because that means we were wrong and he was more ready than maybe we gave him credit for.”
“Unfortunately, as we’ve looked at players over the course of time, there’s been a bunch of clamoring for guys to get up and we’re holding them back and unfortunately, they weren’t quite as ready as most people thought they were and we wish we could have gotten more time with them. In Gerrit’s case, it worked. In [Taillon’s] case, we’ll see how it plays out. He’s ready to go compete. You never know until they get here.”
Huntington was asked whether it has gotten easier to ignore the outside calls for prospects to come up. In his response, he referenced Polanco, who got more outside calls to bring him up than any prospect I can recall.
“We’re going to do what we believe we need to do for the right reasons,” Huntington said. “If it works out, that’s terrific, if it doesn’t, we’re aware. What we’re trying to do is put these players in a position to be successful for a long time. Had we waited another month with Gregory Polanco, this might be the player we saw last year. I firmly believe that. I was a player development guy, and when you rush a player, there’s a lot more damage done. … There’s a time and place and we want to be conservative with our guys.”
That said, Huntington did say a few times that Taillon looks like he’s ready to get a shot in the majors. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that happens this week, either Tuesday to replace Cole (who is scheduled Thursday, but I’m guessing Juan Nicasio would be moved back due to his bullpen usage), or Sunday at the latest if Cole doesn’t go on the DL.
“In Jameson’s case, we felt like he was ready to come up and take that exposure and in the perfect world go learn from it. He may or may not be able to do that.”
Struggles From the Other Rotation Candidates
Taillon might be the only pitching prospect who comes up right now, as Tyler Glasnow and Chad Kuhl are both struggling lately. Kuhl had looked good most of the season, but has been struggling lately.
“We’re in a little bit of a tough stretch for Chad,” Huntington said. “It’s been three not-so-good starts. But overall, just very encouraging season for him. We could have sent this young man on his way in trade. He might be the name we get asked about more than anybody, once they get into realistic names. We’ve liked him for a long time and our guys have pounded the table to keep him because they believe he can really help us at the major league level, be it as a starter, or as a fall-back, as a reliever. We believe he can do it, just a little bit of a tough stretch here. He was so good to start the season, and we believe we’ll get him back on track.”
Kuhl has given up ten earned runs in 14.1 innings over his last three outings, with the last two accounting for eight of those runs in nine innings. Meanwhile, Tyler Glasnow isn’t giving up runs, but has looked inconsistent. He had a horrible outing last night, which followed one of his better looking outings on June 6th. Before that, he still wasn’t giving up runs, but the stuff didn’t match the stats.
“In Chad’s case, the three rough outings have made it a little bit longer timeframe. In Tyler’s case, you see the stat line, there’s no runs but there’s five walks and for the third consecutive outing, he’s not gotten into the sixth inning. We have to get him back into the zone, back to burying hitters early and once we do that, he certainly becomes a major-league option for us.”
Both of these guys could be options at some point this year, but right now Kuhl isn’t in a place where you’d want to bring him up, and Glasnow isn’t going to see the same low run total with his current stuff and struggles in the majors.
