Patience with Snell running thin?
PITTSBURGH — Patience. Patience. Patience.
The Pittsburgh Pirates have preached patience with their young pitching staff since the day spring training started, an understandable sentiment given that only one of their five starters is older than 24.
But two weeks, 14 games and 10 losses into a fast-fizzling season, there were signs Sunday that general manager Dave Littlefield and manager Jim Tracy are losing patience with at least one of those young starters, right-hander Ian Snell.
With the Pirates (4-10) already in danger of getting off to the kind of start that can doom a season almost before it starts, Tracy was clearly agitated by several mistakes Snell made in a 7-3 loss to the Cubs. And Littlefield said that while young pitching usually needs time to develop, no team can give away start after start without seeing some results.
Snell's pitching line — six hits, six runs, one walk, a homer allowed in five-plus innings — wasn't that good, but it was the best of his three starts this season. The right-hander didn't allow a hit or a run from the second to the fifth, but made several key mistakes that angered Tracy, the most glaring a down-the-middle fastball to Todd Walker on an 0-2 count in the first inning.
Walker hit the 91-mph pitch into the right-field seats for a 3-0 Cubs lead and, like that, the game was effectively over.
"I'm not sitting here suggesting that guys don't get hits on an 0-2 or a 1-2 pitch ... but ordinarily, on 0-2, you don't see balls get hammered," Tracy said. "When you come up through a minor-league system, you know early on that when you get a hitter 0-2, a ball sitting right in the middle of the plate is not a very good location."
What baffles the Pirates is that Snell was nearly as successful — and, at times, dominating — in the minor leagues as was left-hander Zach Duke, yet Duke has had much more success in the majors. Snell is 1-4 in the majors with an ERA that is approaching 7.00; Duke is 9-3 with a 2.28 ERA after beating the Cubs 2-1 Saturday night.
Asked why a pitcher like Snell has been unable to channel his previous success into the majors, Tracy said:
"Concentration and focus. There are not that many loopholes in a major league lineup. In Triple-A, it's a little bit different and there's things you get away with that you don't get away with here. That's the difference. That's why they call this the big leagues."
The Pirates wouldn't say if one or two more bad starts might jeopardize Snell's spot in the rotation. Talking not about Snell, but about a struggling young pitcher in general, Littlefield said "What you've got to continue to watch, if things don't go well over time, is how much time can you give him?"
But Littlefield said left-hander Tom Gorzelanny is the pitcher most likely to be recalled from Triple-A if the Pirates decide to make a move soon. He also said it wouldn't matter if the Pirates had four left-handed starters and one right-hander, as they would have if Snell went down and Gorzelanny came up.
Tracy also said patience can have its limits.
"As a manager, I came here to make this club better, markedly better," Tracy said. "The guys in the clubhouse, they have to realize that as a player, you have to produce. I'm not saying you're perfect and a mistake can't be made. But when you do make it, the realization that you have made a mistake and what you have to do to correct it ... there has to be a real understanding of that."
NOTES: C Ronny Paulino, called up Sunday from Triple-A Indianapolis to replace Ryan Doumit (hamstring), is expected to make a start or two until Doumit returns in 10 days. C Humberto Cota started his fifth consecutive game Sunday, and the Pirates don't have their first day off of the season until Thursday.
