PITTSBURGH _ The Pirates outfielders got a workout Thursday night. They spent much of the first five innings chasing down hard-hit balls in the gap or the corner. Jameson Taillon could not keep the Chicago Cubs off barrel, off the bases, or off the plate.
Taillon's outing during Thursday's 8-2 loss at PNC Park returned him, after a brief interlude, to the challenges of his second half, a stretch of starts full of too many runs and not enough innings. The 25-year-old right-hander is learning in his first full major league season the level to which big league hitters adjust.
Taillon had to deal with a 52-minute rain delay when a storm drenched PNC Park minutes before first pitch. The rain and the Pirates' position in the standings made for a quiet, empty ballpark, and the teams played the ninth inning in the rain as well.
Nothing about Taillon's path to the majors has been easy. That hasn't changed since he arrived. He missed five weeks because of surgery to address testicular cancer. Then he came back and posted a 1.98 ERA in five starts, with 29 strikeouts in 27 1/3 innings, before the All-Star break.
In 11 starts since, he has a 7.17 ERA, 76 hits allowed in 54 innings and 21 walks. He walked 17 batters in 18 starts last year. Six scoreless innings in his previous start interrupted the downward trend, but he now has a 4.78 ERA.
Thursday the Cubs tagged him for 11 hits, six of them doubles, and six runs in 4 2/3 innings. Four out of five leadoff batters reached base. His pitches sometimes found the corners, but too frequently they were high enough in the zone that the Cubs could handle them anyway.
Manager Clint Hurdle and general manager Neal Huntington talked before Thursday's game about the three young starters in the Pirates' rotation _ Taillon, Chad Kuhl and Trevor Williams _ and whether they might need a break. Taillon is a unique case.
"We're using our eyes, because this is all uncharted territory for everybody," Hurdle said. "Nobody's got a career like this that we can draw back to."
Ian Happ singled in the first and doubled in the third, scoring both times. Javier Baez doubled and scored in the second.
Taillon finally retired the leadoff batter in the fourth. Then the Cubs got three consecutive hits, the final of which Jon Lester lined into the gap for an RBI double.
Lester threw 26 pitches in the first and had 44 through two, but kept the Pirates scoreless with help from his defense. Sean Rodriguez led off the second with a walk, but Baez fielded Elias Diaz's grounder behind second base and used his glove to flip the ball to Ben Zobrist to begin the double play.
Jordy Mercer doubled with two outs and Taillon singled up the middle. Third-base coach Joey Cora sent Mercer despite Happ playing shallow with the pitcher batting, and Happ easily threw out Mercer to end the inning.
The control issues continued to drive up Lester's pitch count in the third, when he issued his third and fourth walks of the night to the first two batters of the inning. The Pirates got only one run out of the inning, on Josh Bell's groundout.
