The Pirates' management needs to get with this or get gone

I asked afterward if, given this offense's season-long struggle, he felt extra pressure to perform:

"I think that's probably human nature to try to do a little extra when things aren't going well," he'd reply. "So probably, yeah."

Good for him. That's what the roster's best everyday player should bring.

I'd also love to bury my head in Andrew McCutchen's two hits, two other lasered outs -- the latter being par for the course for him of late -- and his 20-something-style sprint over 270 feet:

I'd mentioned to Cutch I used to document his physics-defying straight-line bends around second base back in the day.

"I still got it?" he'd ask me with a broad smile.

It looked like a little extra legwork, but I lied. He deserved it. Again, he's been unlucky all month -- "Never dealt with anything like it," he'd tell me -- before breaking through in recent games.

Good for him. That's what the roster's most accomplished player should bring.

I'd also love to bury my head in all of Oneil Cruz's absurd Statcast data, notably on this night a 116.3-mph single that was accompanied by a double, a walk and two RBIs. And Jack Suwinski and Yasmani Grandal each slugging a two-run home run. And Mitch Keller's six scoreless innings despite fending off eight hits. And David Bednar's encouraging 1-2-3 save.

Good for them. All of them.

But sorry, beg pardon for the repeated buzzkills, I can't do it. I just can't.

Because this, my friends, is what it looks like when a few players prevail in the face of absolutely abysmal management. And in this, the era in which Paul Skenes and Jared Jones are here alongside Keller, in which the Pirates might soon have Major League Baseball's most potent rotation, in which they're 19-23 but only 5.5 games back of these Brewers in a not-so-special Central Division ... that's just not OK.

Or, I'd more accurately say, it shouldn't be OK by Bob Nutting and/or Travis Williams.

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First and foremost on this day, I'm talking about the insane call, regardless who made it, to start Rowdy Tellez over Connor Joe.

Look, I like Tellez. It's impossible not to. And it couldn't have been clearer from our brief chat in the afternoon here that he's having as tough a time off the field as on it. But there's no baseball rationale for starting him ahead of Joe. Just none. The former's been the team's very worst hitter at .178 with one home run and four extra-base hits amid 119 plate appearances, and the latter's been the very best in slashing .292/.366/.500 with five home runs and 20 RBIs. Even platoon splits won't help, since Joe's .781 OPS against right-handers is exactly 250 points up on Tellez's .531.

I asked Derek Shelton, before the game but after he'd posted his lineup, what it'd take for him to make Joe an everyday player:

"Well, he's been in there," was the reply. "I mean, but we're gonna mix everybody in. So, you know, he's gonna continue to get at-bats against all guys, but we're gonna play our whole roster."

I followed up by asking if this also had to do with sticking by Tellez: "We need to get Rowdy going. That's important for us. He's a guy that we signed in the offseason and, you know, he's not gonna get going by not getting reps."

As a reporter who's often been spurned over the years upon questioning lineup decisions, I both appreciate and respect that Shelton answered the question at all.

But ... no.

They don't "need to get Rowdy going." They need to win games.

It's not at all "important" for the Pirates compared to a 10-game stretch of facing nothing but Cubs and Brewers, the two teams ahead of them in the division. 

And unless "he's a guy that we signed in the offseason" is some sideways swipe at Ben Cherington and his staff -- I don't believe that for a second -- for signing Tellez at one year and $3.2 million when better first basemen were available, then that might be the silliest statement of all. Because that'd betray what I happen to believe is the ugly truth here, and that's that Tellez keeps getting shoved out there to try to salvage the GM's very bad decision.

And they're doing it in plain sight. Including the plain sight of Nutting and Williams.

Joe's not some superstar, but he's a bona fide late bloomer at age 31, and his resume with the bat's steadily solidified. I had a good talk with him here, as well, and he's coming across as confident as I've ever heard him. Not complaining. He's too much of a pro for that. But he believes that what he's done is real.

On this night, though, with this being one of only a dozen meetings with the Brewers in the modern scheduling format, he sat and watched all three hours, seven minutes of it. Even in the ninth inning when the Pirates had runners on second and third with one out, when he could've pinch-hit for Tellez for added insurance via routine contact ... he sat and watched Tellez swing through a slider to finish 0 for 5.

The next at-bat should be in Indianapolis after he's designated for assignment and no other team touches his contract.

Doesn't take Casey Stengel to see this, yeah?

Anyway, back to the game: Keller's artful dodging allowed the Pirates to lead, 3-0, after six. They tacked on two each in the seventh and eighth, but Josh Fleming allowed two and four himself in the bottom halves of those innings to let the Brewers soar back within 7-6.

Of the 40 pitches Shelton let Fleming throw, he'd concede five hits, a walk and, oh, yeah, this grand slam by Jake Bauers:

Feel familiar at all?

Why'd Shelton send Fleming back out for a second inning, much less keep leaving him out there to get slammed?

This answer's become stock: With Skenes' arrival, they're going to a six-man rotation, so the bullpen's down one. Heard it a bunch the past few days already.

One problem: It can't be quantified. Colin Holderman not only was out in the pen, but he'd warm up twice ... and he'd never get used. Luis Ortiz was out there, he's pitched four whole innings this month ... and he'd never get used. Kyle Nicolas, heaven help us, was out there ... and he shouldn't have been, since the only reason he stuck on the roster while Roansy Contreras was released over the weekend was that the general organizational Contreras failure could be minimized by occurring on the morning of Skenes' debut.

I asked Shelton, prefacing that I understood he's not the GM, if this bullpen situation was becoming a cramp for him, and he acknowledged there was about to be a meeting in his office -- Cherington's on this trip -- to discuss that very thing.

Imagine if this were an important series and counting up available arms could've been contemplated beforehand.

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Something's ... weird in the Pirates' world right now. I can't pinpoint it, so I won't carry the concept too far, but I'm neither new to this job nor to this world. People who don't normally talk in tough times are talking. People who do normally talk aren't talking.

If there's pressure on Cherington from above, I don't have that information. But I know that he both looked and sounded a mess with that rambling answer about accountability for the offense the other day at the Skenes debut -- "I'd still bet on this group to get better, and we know we need to," was a slice of that -- and that's not like him. I also know that, to repeat, he's on this trip, and that's not like him in mid-May.

If there's pressure on Shelton, I don't have that information, either. But glance again at the video up there of his answer to my question about Joe/Tellez, and tell me if I'm the only one who sensed how uncomfortable that was. I've got no issue with the man, and he knows that, so I'd have to assume it's the subject matter, for whatever reason. And that's really not like him.

Here's what I can put forth with certainty: This franchise has fallen into some spectacular fortune with the collective arrival of Skenes and Jones. But, as I can recall from Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin coming to the Penguins -- and no, I'm not likening these kids to established legends but, rather, the immediate impact of their arrivals -- the priorities have to change. And I mean right away and all the way. Spending priorities. Roster priorities. Game priorities. Routine bleeping lineup decisions.

As the French author Voltaire -- or was it Stan Lee? -- once wrote, "With great power comes great responsibility."

It's Year 5 of this front office. The most talented players in the system are here. The rebuild's over. The can can't be kicked any further down the road. And the only games that count are the ones being contested right in front of them.

These guys, from Nutting down, need to get that. Or get gone.

• Thanks for reading my baseball coverage. It won't always be what everyone wants, based on a single outcome here or there, but I'll go with what I believe presents the fairest, most complete picture every time.

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