PITTSBURGH _ Manager Clint Hurdle was spot-on in his pre-game assessment of Drew Hutchison, and he probably wished he wasn't.
"It seemed like one inning was getting complicated," Hurdle said of Hutchison's seven games with Class AAA Indianapolis since the Pirates acquired him. "A crooked-number inning would show up in the starts. When things would start to move in the wrong direction, for whatever reason, he wasn't able to stop it."
That was the case Saturday. Hutchison pitched well in three scoreless innings. His fourth frame, an eight-batter, four-run affair during which a lead evaporated, would be his last.
In the span of two innings, Hutchison and Trevor Williams turned a 4-0 lead into a 7-4 deficit in what would eventually become an 8-7 loss to the Cincinnati Reds at PNC Park. Their record dropped to 69-71. This is a bad time for bad play: With 22 games remaining, the Pirates have lost 10 of their past 12 and dug the hole out of which they must climb for a wild-card spot deeper still.
Saturday offered Hurdle his first live look at the 26-year-old Hutchison, the right-hander who came from the Toronto Blue Jays in return for Francisco Liriano, Reese McGuire and Harold Ramirez. Hutchison had started 73 games in parts of four seasons in the majors. That includes 32 starts in 2014 and opening day in '15, but only two this year.
Hutchison had a 4.50 ERA in seven games, six starts, with Class AAA Indianapolis since the trade.
"We were going to give him a look up here based on the hunt for him and he was involved in the trade and he was the guy that we had targeted," Hurdle said. "The volume of work that he did in Indianapolis within the last month, the pour-in by the staff. We were looking to get him the ball in some shape, fashion or form while he was here."
Seven Pirates batters required 36 pitches from Reds starter Robert Stephenson in a two-run first inning. Josh Bell drove in one run with a scorched opposite-field double. Jung Ho Kang singled to score another.
Some luck led to the next two runs. Bell singled in the third and tried to advance to second on Andrew McCutchen's flyout to center field. Jose Peraza threw him out, but after a challenge the call was overturned.
Through his first two at-bats, Kang saw one fastball out of 10 pitches. In the third inning, he hit an 0-2 hanging curveball just inside the left-field foul pole for his 18th home run and gave the Pirates a 4-0 lead.
Hutchison surrendered it in the fourth. He allowed five hits and a hit-by-pitch. Eugenio Suarez, Tucker Barnhart, Peraza and Zack Cozart drove in the runs.
Williams took over in the fifth and allowed the first three batters to reach safely, including a bunt single by Brandon Phillips where nobody recorded an out. A bases-loaded walk and Tucker Barnhart's two-run double converted those three baserunners into runs.
