(Featured photo by Gene J. Puskar/AP)
On Saturday, in front of a sellout crowd, giveaway day, and a Paul Skenes start, the Pirates put up a complete dud.
It was another day of inept offense and a waste of pretty good pitching. The “Sell The Team!” chants were back as Cleveland took their second straight game against the Pirates, 3-0.
I could fill up this article with numerous things that went wrong for the Pirates in this game, but what I want to focus on is something that happened in the bottom of the ninth inning.
Enmanuel Valdez, who nearly hit a home run back in the first inning, was leading off as his Buccos were hoping to rally from a three-run deficit with three outs to work with.
Facing Cleveland’s Emmanuel Clase, who has been shaky to start the year (six earned runs and 15 hits in 8.1 innings), Valdez gets a hold of one and drills it deep into the center field grass. As the Guardians’ outfielders chased it, Valdez rounded first and headed to second. With some time still, he bolted for third and just made it there in time.
But only the Pirates would have this circumstance happen to them.
Valdez successfully slides into third, beating out the tag by third baseman Jose Ramirez. But Valdez injures his shoulder in the process. He keeps his fingers on the bag just long enough, but as he winces in pain in the dirt, he puts his hand up to the third base umpire to call for time.
As he puts his hand up (and therefore off the bag), Ramirez tags him, and the umpire calls him out.
The fans at PNC Park and Greg Brown could not believe that Valdez was called out.
Now here’s my opinion on this: I don’t blame Ramirez for what he did. He’s just trying to close out the game and help his team get the win. That is entirely on the third base umpire for watching a player rile around in pain, see him call for time, and then call him out as he puts his hand up to stop play.
I understand that maybe that’s how you are supposed to call that as it is stated in the rulebook — but that is a terrible optic for the league and for those umpires.
Aside from that, however, what really bothered me was the lack of fire that the Pirates, and in particular, manager Derek Shelton had over this incident. Shelton came out of the dugout, along with a trainer, to check on and assist Valdez off the field.
That was it.
He walked back to the dugout and challenged the play from the dugout, which was eventually upheld and resulted with an injured Valdez out.
This was a time where Shelton played things all wrong.
What I really wanted to see was Shelton get on the field and yell at that umpire. Is it performative? Probably. But it shows that he cares enough to get visibly upset with the officials over that decision.
In a column I wrote a few weeks ago, I argued that Shelton needed to show some more passion from his post, and while you certainly never want to see any player get hurt, I could not have imagined a better scenario for Shelton to do that.
When your own player is wincing in pain on the ground after sliding into third and gets called out after he puts his hand up to ask for time, the manager has to get out there and challenge the umpire over that.
There has to be some pride. There has to be some anger. Shelton going quietly back to the dugout makes this entire organization look weak. I know that in this case an opposing player had no impact in a Bucco getting hurt, but it makes this team look like pushovers and a group that can be easily bullied.
Like I said, Shelton getting up there and yelling is mostly performative. But that performance not only shows the fans some sign of life in an otherwise atrocious performance, it also shows the other players on the team that their manager has their back and is willing to stick up and defend them.
Shelton doesn’t have a lot of supporters left in this town. He’s got a long road ahead of him to gain that back. You know what would have been a good start? Rally the troops after that umpire calls Valdez out. Get in his umpire’s face, kick some dirt in the air, throw your hands up in disgust, and get yourself ejected.
It’s the bottom of the ninth inning in a 3-0 ballgame for god sake. The time for a passionate reaction and a last ditch effort to wake up the team is literally right then and right there.
Shelton cowered.
Fifth Avenue Sports 
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