There has been a lot of fanfare surrounding the long awaited debut for Pittsburgh Pirates prized prospect Gregory Polanco and it has been well-deserved as not only is Polanco finally in Pittsburgh, he looks like a guy that is going to be manning right field in PNC Park for a long time to come.
But he wasn’t supposed to come alone.
All of the excitement in spring training surrounded not only the future arrival Polanco, but that of Jameson Taillon as well.
Given the state of the Pirates pitching staff at the moment, you had to think that Taillon’s debut would have possibly come sometime this week as well, which could have been the shot in the arm this pitching staff badly needs at the moment.
No one could have predicted that on June 12, the Bucs would be without three-fifths of their Opening Day starting rotation. But after the release of Wandy Rodriguez and placing Gerrit Cole and Francisco Liriano on the disabled list, that is exactly the case.
No one also could have predicted that Rodriguez and Liriano would have been so bad this season.
When Neal Huntington signed Edinson Volquez in the offseason, I can tell you he wasn’t doing so to make him one of the Pirates top starting pitchers, but that is exactly what Volquez needs to be right now.
Taillon was just one of many pitchers so far this season to be shelved with Tommy John surgery and while the news really seemed like a kick in the gut at the time, looking at the patchwork Pirates pitching staff right now, it is even a bigger blow.
How nice would it be to see Taillon called up to start on Sunday instead of hearing names like Vance Worley and others thrown around?
The Pirates season has been ravished by injuries almost all season long and their depth has been tested in a major way.
Liriano and Cole joined the likes of Neil Walker, Jason Grilli and Russell Martin as Pirates regulars to already see time on the DL.
However the swoon of injuries almost started the day Taillon went down.
While the Pirates won’t admit so publically, they know they planned on counting on Taillon this season, the same way they knew they would eventually be counting on Polanco.
Sometimes things don’t go as planned though.
For the time being Huntington will have to keep trying to plug holes in the starting rotation and hopefully some guys will start pitching better as solid starting pitching is the only way the Pirates will legitimately be a contender and can consider themselves buyers by the time the trade deadline rolls around.
Of course the Pirates bats could get hot and start to make up for the starting pitchers not getting through six innings on a consistent basis, but it sure would be nice to have five legitimate MLB arms healthy and ready to take the ball every fifth day.
At the end of the day though the Pirates could feel the effect by Taillon being on the shelf.
Could Taillon had a similar impact on this current team similar to the impact Cole had last year?
That’s anyone’s guess, but I would have liked his chances better than some of the guys we have been seeing out there.
The only good news is one day in the near future there will be the hype of another top Pirates prospect making his debut at PNC Park.
Unfortunately that day won’t come this season like it should have.
Photo Credit: MLB.com
