PITTSBURGH — Roansy Contreras’ reintroduction didn’t end in a win, even though he surely deserved one.
Contreras tossed five shutout innings in his first start back from Class AAA Indianapolis, leaving the Colorado Rockies’ offense looking lost. Unfortunately for the Pirates’ No. 6 prospect, his own team’s offense looked equally lost.
The Pirates’ bullpen let in one unearned run in the eighth inning, but the Pirate bats scored only one themselves. In extra innings, the Rockies plated their ghost runner on a one-out single in the 10th, and the Pirates couldn’t answer, falling, 2-1 in extras. It’s the 10th time in their last 12 games that the Pirates have scored three runs or fewer. They haven’t scored five runs in a game since May 11.
Even still, the offense wasn’t the headline of Tuesday’s game. That honor belonged to Contreras. It wasn’t his MLB debut with the Pirates, but it might as well have been.
His actual MLB debut, last season against the Chicago Cubs, lasted just three innings. Then, when Contreras joined the Pirates earlier this season, he pitched out of the bullpen, logging a couple innings here and there when needed.
So for all intents and purposes, Tuesday marked the start of Contreras’ true, starter’s career in the big leagues. No real innings limit, no hybrid reliever scheduled to pitch four or five innings after Contreras. Just a 22-year-old top-100 prospect slotting into the Pirates’ rotation.
And if that’s the framing of this start, then Contreras’ reintroduction to the majors went about as well as it could have.
In the first inning, Contreras emphatically made his presence felt. He induced a leadoff flyout to Connor Joe, then dusted away the next two batters on swinging strikeouts. First came a 96-mph fastball up and out of the zone that got a whiff from veteran, four-time all-star Charlie Blackmon. Next was a biting slider, swung through by C.J. Cron, who entered the game hitting .321 and tied for the National League lead with 11 home runs.
Contreras did work in and out of trouble at times, stranding two runners with a flyout in the second, then stranding two more with a swinging strikeout against Sam Hilliard in the fourth, but he punctuated his outing in a dominant way, too. Contreras struck out Elias Díaz and Joe in the fifth to begin a 1-2-3 final frame.
If one were looking for flaws, there were some, but those people would be nitpicking. A team who has experienced uneven starts nearly all season, searching for more consistency in the rotation, called upon its No. 6 prospect to toe the slab, and Contreras showed mighty flashes of what he can do.
While Contreras was the main event, especially in such a low-scoring affair, the Pirate who actually made his MLB debut Tuesday proved to be a worthwhile undercard. Outfielder Cal Mitchell, the Pirates’ No. 25 prospect, was called up Tuesday afternoon and slotted right into the starting lineup, batting eighth and playing right field.
After lining out to right field in his first at-bat, Mitchell got a real shot to impress in the fifth. Fellow rookie Diego Castillo doubled just inside first base to reach scoring position. Mitchell then worked a 1-2 count, seeing five pitches before lifting a blooper into center on the sixth pitch of the at-bat. It landed weakly in center field and Castillo, who made a good read on the ball, beat the throw home to open the game’s scoring.
That had the Pirates trending in the right direction, but with it being the lone run, there was almost no room for error, and an error is exactly what undid them in the eighth. To lead off the top of that inning, Rodolfo Castro couldn’t corral a ground ball in the hole wide of shortstop, allowing a runner to reach. Two singles scored the run, knotting things up.
In the 10th, rock solid reliever David Bednar allowed the Rockies’ ghost runner to score on a one-out single, and that was that. The Pirates couldn’t put anything else together, finishing the night with just five hits — all of them singles — to squander the start Contreras gave them.
