Questionable Pitching Moves, Dormant Offense Doom Pirates to Postseason Exit

Clint Hurdle was questioned immediately, for the decision itself and the way he came to it.

Rightfully so, considering such heavy decisions should not be left up to a committee of players, and that the probabilities of everything falling exactly how the Pittsburgh Pirates needed for the decision to be a good one were crazily slim.

Hurdle’s decisions to pitch No. 1 starter Gerrit Cole on Sunday with a minimal chance to win the National League Central on the last day of the regular season and throw Edinson Volquez in Wednesday’s win-or-go-home Wild Card Game showdown seemed absurd from the start. And while it is not always wise to evaluate decisions based on end results, this one was panned before and after the San Francisco Giants punished the Pirates, 8-0, at PNC Park to advance to the National League Division Series against the Washington Nationals.

"

There really was something odd about Clint Hurdle putting all that faith in Volquez in a do-or-die game.

— Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) October 2, 2014"

The oddity was that Hurdle based an important decision on emotion, and not even his own. It was the emotion of others—Andrew McCutchen, Russell Martin, Clint Barmes, Mark Melancon and Francisco Liriano—whom Hurdle polled to decide who to pitch last Sunday in the hopes they could win, the St. Louis Cardinals would lose to the awful Arizona Diamondbacks and then that the Pirates could also win a one-game playoff against St. Louis. The players, not surprisingly, voted to go with the low probability of winning the division, which was at 12.5 percent going into Sunday, according to BaseballProspectus.com. 

The Pirates did not win the division, of course, and hosted the Giants in the Wild Card Game. As it turned out, the choice to give the ball to Volquez, the team’s sixth-best starter by way of fielding independent pitching (4.15), was a disaster and led to more Hurdle criticism as things started to unravel.

"

Sorry guys, but Volquez's low ERA is hugely dependent on .263 BABiP allowed. Doesn't mean anything.

— robneyer (@robneyer) October 2, 2014"

Volquez did not have pinpoint control through the first three innings, but he managed to maneuver well enough to not allow a run.

“He was fortunate to get to the fourth inning without the Giants scoring any runs,” MLB Network analyst Dan Plesac said on the air after the game. “There were a lot of balls squared up and centered by the Giants.”

Then, in the fourth inning, the Pirates’ season blew up in Volquez’s right hand.

Two singles and a walk loaded the bases for the Giants, and in a game where there is no tomorrow for the loser, Hurdle failed to prepare for a meltdown. The Pirates had no one warming up in the bullpen, leaving a struggling Volquez on a tightrope against the only top-five NL offense he’s faced since Aug. 17.

Four pitches later, Volquez gave Brandon Crawford the definition of a hanging curveball, and the nonthreatening shortstop lofted it into the right-field seats, making him the only shortstop in postseason history to ever hit a grand slam.

And with that hit, the Pirates’ season essentially ended in the most undramatic way possible—a blowout.

“If you don’t have a chance to win your division, maybe you can make some adjustments along the way to set up for a Wild Card Game,” Hurdle said in his postgame press conference.

The thing is, Clint, you had that option. You just didn’t set up for the most probable outcome.

Then again, it didn’t matter much who pitched for the Pirates unless he was capable of throwing more than nine shutout innings, because Madison Bumgarner was nearly untouchable for the Giants. He threw a shutout, struck out 10, walked one and allowed four hits.

"

Bumgarner joins these pitchers who have thrown CG shutouts in winner-take-all games w 10+ K: Sandy Koufax in 1965 & Justin Verlander in 2012

— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) October 2, 2014"

The Giants had the “luxury” of being eliminated from their division race before last weekend, which allowed them to set up their pitching for this game. Bumgarner was the no-brainer choice, and he carved through the Pirates' lineup like it was warm butter, his array of pitches the Ginsu.

Pittsburgh’s best hitters—McCutchen, Martin, Josh Harrison, Starling Marte and Neil Walker—combined to go 4-for-19, all of the hits singles and one of them of the infield variety.

“We tried to counterpunch,” Hurdle said. “We just couldn’t muster up anything.”

Hurdle himself also struggled as his players did. He made the mistake of letting emotion trump reason, data and a decent amount of common sense in making a low-percentage gamble for the division. He failed to prepare for what seemed like an inevitable blowup based on Volquez’s absent command, never even flirting with the idea of lifting his starter before things got out of control.

The Pirates are now in the position to be questioned in this manner. They’d become a real contender and entered the postseason on a run that made it reasonable to think they could reach the World Series. With that comes the capability to disappoint in October, and for the second consecutive season, after 20 years of not sniffing the playoffs, the Pirates have.

Looking forward, Cole can become a true ace, McCutchen a multiple-time MVP and the rest of the team can grow with them and remain a perennial contender. As for this season, a couple of questionable decisions and a dominant opposing pitcher were enough to end it.

Anthony Witrado covers Major League Baseball for Bleacher Report. He spent the previous three seasons as the national baseball columnist at Sporting News, and four years before that as the Brewers beat writer for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.