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| Starling Marte. - AP |
WASHINGTON -- Difficulties came in all forms for the 2017 Pirates, both on a team and individual basis. We've gone on and on about the team side on this website throughout the summer and early fall, but baseball is an individual game at heart.
To that point, there were two particularly arduous journeys taken by Pirates this season, paths that included plenty of missed time and a second-half grind. Let's not equate Jameson Taillon and Starling Marte too much, though, since one was sidelined by testicular cancer and the other by his own misdeeds.
At the same time, overcoming adversity is about as universal of a theme as there is. We can all relate to it, even if the individual brands are different.
"I don't know what he's gone through off the field," Clint Hurdle said of Taillon a few hours before the righty closed his season with seven innings of one-run pitching in the Pirates' 4-1 comeback win Saturday. "As we've talked about, this is uncharted territory for anybody."
Taillon surely blazed a trail in his first full season in the majors, returning from cancer treatment in early June and carrying a 2.73 ERA into the All-Star break. But bad mechanical habits led to a late-summer slump and some frustration when the Pirates told him to skip a turn earlier this month. In his three starts following the rest, which included some delivery rehab with Ray Searage, Taillon threw 17 innings, allowing four runs on 14 hits while striking out 15 and walking three.
On Saturday night at a brisk, breezy Nationals Park, he turned in his longest start since April 16, and arguably the crispest of his 43 appearances for the Pirates.
"We were really impressed," Hurdle said. "Very efficient. ... The fastball command was maybe as good as we've seen all year. It had to have been a very good feeling, to finish so strong. Very proud of him."
Taillon had a similar reaction, even though his season ERA ended up the worst of the five regular starters, at 4.44. Posting a 2.12 ERA over his final three starts -- each against a playoff team or contender -- might hold more heft through the offseason than all that came before.
"I was competitive and wanted to keep pitching, but sometimes it takes an outside viewpoint to say that you need a break," Taillon said, referring to his recent 10 days off. "It really helped mentally. Tonight verifies that what me and Ray were working with on the side are the right things. It leaves a good taste."
Taillon's night could've gone beyond seven for the first time in a calendar year, but the Pirates needed a pinch-hitter in the top of the eighth. To punctuate his performance, Taillon whiffed his old USA Baseball teammate and fellow 2010 draft topper Bryce Harper twice on sharp curveballs:
"He had ace stuff tonight," Max Moroff said.
The same didn't apply for Marte, who struck out swinging three times before legging out an infield single to start the Pirates' four-run ninth against Washington's Brandon Kintzler. That extended Marte's hitting streak to 11 games and set the stage for Sean Rodríguez to tie the game with a two-out, two-strike single. Moroff then put the Pirates ahead with a three-run triple:
"It gets started with Marte, who had a tough night," Hurdle said. "He's had a challenging season. Going through the exit interviews with him, he's learned a lot. He understands the difference between words and actions, the need to be intentional, humble, the importance of gratefulness. Another guy with different growth opportunities through the season."
Marte, who was unavailable for comment due to some routine postgame treatment, is the first Pirate ever to be suspended for performance-enhancing drug use, costing him 80 games from April through July. Starting in center field in place of the injured Andrew McCutchen on Saturday, Marte unleashed two spectacular throws in the second that won't show up in the box score because they didn't lead to outs.
The first of those bullets was just a split-second late to hose Daniel Murphy at the plate:
Even after a strong September, Marte is still hitting .274/.333/.380, which would be his weakest triple-slash line in all facets since his rookie year of 2012. But there's been enough lately to inspire confidence that his skills haven't diminished after the steroid nandrolone passed out of his system.
"What's he have, three infield hits in this series?" asked Rodríguez. "His speed still plays. When I got here, you could tell he was kind of keeping his head down, but he swallowed it and he's been getting after it. He's heating up."
After battling through his own difficulties with an injured shoulder sustained in an offseason car accident, Rodríguez said he understands the challenge of getting up to speed in the middle of a season, as Marte has.
Hurdle said only in the past two weeks has Marte's "barrel" started to show up consistently at the plate, resulting in harder contact to all fields. The manager also lauded Marte's reduced chase rate on pitches out of the zone, a bugaboo that resurfaced Saturday against starter Max Scherzer and reliever A.J. Cole.
He fought through it, though, to do what the Pirates expect him to do: Trigger rallies with those fast-twitch muscles, even if it occasionally takes a video review to confirm:
Marte will turn 29 on Oct. 8, so its reasonable to project at least a couple more peak years for him while he's under contract. He has two more guaranteed years, then two team option years that could take Marte through his age-32 season.
Taillon likely has a longer future with the Pirates, with five more years of club control left. For at least one reason, this year might be his most memorable after his playing years are over.
"There's always road bumps," Taillon said. "There's always things that happen. It's been a whirlwind, but it's my path."
Rest assured his grit in the face of a big-time real-life problem made an impression on the other men in that clubhouse.
"The fact of the matter is, it's got nothing to do with him pitching," Hurdle said. "This man had every opportunity to go home. This man had every opportunity to feel sorry for himself. Nobody would've said a word. 'No, I get it. Go home. Relax. Get ready for next season.' Not only did he not do that, he said, 'I'm going to get better. I'm going to pitch this year for this team, because I want to be on this team.' That's what I got for you on Jameson."
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