DETROIT -- I mean, do something. Like, anything? Look, this isn't specific to the Pirates' doubleheader split with the Tigers on this cloudy Wednesday at Comerica Park, an 8-0 loss in Game 1 and a 10-2 bounceback in Game 2. And it certainly isn't specific to either of their twin wunderkind pitchers, Paul Skenes and Jared Jones, the former having fared well in the nightcap with a six-inning line of two runs, three hits, nine strikeouts and a walk, after the latter faced his first flawed start with a 4 1/3-inning line of seven runs, five earned, five hits, two strikeouts and two walks.
No, I'm thinking bigger. I'm thinking ..
. about how many of Major League Baseball's 30 teams are blessed at his pivotal position to this degree. "Not many," Mitch Keller, very much in that same category of pitchers, would reply afterward when I brought it up.
"Everyone's doing their part and going out there and competing really well. It's a fun competition between all of us, trying to be the best one. It's a lot of fun.
And yeah, absolutely, I don't think many teams in baseball have what we have and what potential we even further have." Yeah, that. I'm thinking that.
But I'm also thinking this: Can anyone at any level of the organization summon up any sense of the responsibility inherent in having not one but two young talents of this scope, plus a peak-of-his-career Keller, plus Bailey Falter as one of the sport's most prominent surprises this season, in the same rotation? Seriously, can anyone .
