By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/?m=11
WASHINGTON -- If the Stephen Strasburg debut was the atmospheric equivalent of a circus, the Brad Lincoln debut was more like a lounge act, perhaps something between earnest rockabilly at a half empty roadhouse and raw open mic night at Chuckles.
But remember, the Pirates aren't really in the entertainment business; if they were, they'd have lined up their best pitching prospect's major league baptism to coincide with Strasburg's at the national baseball media's ground zero Tuesday night, but that would have been, you know, compelling.
They hate that word.
Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press
Pirates pitcher Brad Lincoln, making his major league debut, delievers during the first inning of Wednesday's game at Nationals Park in Washington.
So it was no fault of Lincoln's that his inaugural performance played to a relatively intimate gathering of Nationals fans, just as it wasn't his fault that he didn't exactly rocket through the minors in two months, as Strasburg had. It's real hard to rocket with a reconstructed pitching elbow, even when your pedigree reeks of promise.
Nothing that happened Wednesday night should dissuade anyone from the notion that Brad Lincoln has the aptitude to stabilize a starting rotation that had produced exactly one win the club's past 19 games at game time Wednesday night.
So make it one in 20.
Yeah, Lincoln pitched some uphill innings and yeah, his command wasn't always there, and his official no-decision was probably the best of the empirical evidence gathered on his first night. But for the most part, Lincoln pitched like a guy who fully deserved to be the fourth player taken in the 2006 draft, three spots before Clayton Kershaw, three more before Tim Lincecum. He threw strike one habitually, kept the Nationals pretty much to the infield, and, until his defense led him down a dark alley in a fitful fourth inning, made just one mistake that Adam Dunn hit 400-plus feet for a two-run homer.
"It felt all right," Lincoln said of his first night center stage. "I tried to slow things down, take it all in. It was sure something I'll never forget. Hopefully, it'll get better from here."
That fourth started to get tricky when Josh Willingham singled off the shoulder of third baseman Andy LaRoche and scored when Roger Bernadina drove a double to the wall, and that's when the chuckles started.
Ian Desmond sliced a 1-0 pitch to right field into the vicinity of Lastings Milledge, who had shifted over there to make room for new left fielder Jose Tabata, the talented Venezuelan who'd played his way out of Class AAA just in time to arrive for the Lincoln debut. Milledge took a bending route to the baseball, punctuating the play by still another leave-your-feet-and-hope-to-make-the-top-10-plays dive, all of which resulted in another double.
One out later, Washington pitcher John Lannan chopped a funny-hop single past the glove of charging shortstop Ronny Cedeno and Lincoln was looking at a three-run inning he plainly didn't deserve.
"If we make those plays, and granted they were difficult plays, but if we make them there's no three-run inning, which is what really hurt him," said Pirates manager John Russell. "I thought he threw the ball fine. He tried to come in on some guys and the ball kind of leaked back over the middle of the plate, but overall I thought he threw the ball real well. He had some pretty efficient innings. He threw his breaking ball. And he showed he could bounce back."
On a night when the Pirates' offense was stranding more people than a transit strike, Lincoln stayed in the battle well into the night. He singled in his first big league at-bat and, in the top of the fifth, lashed another hit off Lannan's leg that scored Milledge with the run that tied the score, 5-5.
The only pressing question about Lincoln at that point, really, was "Can he hit third?"
A former high school quarterback in Clute, Texas, Lincoln hit 14 homers while pitching for the University of Houston, where he was college baseball's player of the year in '06.
His arrival didn't come an inning too soon for a club with a rotation that remains pretty much a shambles. Lincoln became the 10th starter for John Russell this season (he used nine all of last year), and this on the night Russell wrote his 50th lineup in 58 games, featuring Tabata as his eighth leadoff hitter.
So Lincoln got through his first six big league innings on 86 pitches, 51 of them strikes. His line read seven hits (but three were fairly shaggy), five earned runs (earned by somewhat loose definition), two walks and three strikeouts. His arrival and Tabata's has pushed the Pirates' future in the direction of actual focus. Top prospect Pedro Alvarez remains in Indianapolis, but with Lincoln, Tabata, and Neil Walker all finally in the lineup, you can almost see a plan.
All this club needs now is a third baseman, a shortstop, a catcher, a right fielder, and two or three effective starting pitchers and hey, who knows?
Gene Collier: gcollier@post-gazette.com.
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