PITTSBURGH – Inside the Pirates’ clubhouse at PNC Park, the locker to the right of the support pillar remains empty. For years, that spot has been the unofficial locker of the team’s closer, occupied by David Bednar in recent years. With Bednar optioned to Triple-A Indianapolis on Tuesday after struggling out of the gate, the locker is bare.
If you’re into symbolism, take that as a sign the team doesn’t have a closer right now. Manager Derek Shelton declined to name one coming out of Spring Training. Given the quick hook on Bednar – even if it was out of necessity to get an extra starter in Tommy Harrington up to the Majors – that decision makes more sense now.
Three stations to the left of the empty locker is Colin Holderman. The right-hander is in his fourth season with the Pirates, and if Bednar was the unofficial closer, Holderman was the unofficial setup man. He looked excellent this Spring Training, but like Bednar, he has struggled mightily out of the gate.
Holderman has allowed five runs over his first 4 2/3 innings this season, and he allowed one of the biggest hits of the night in the Pirates’ 10-4 loss to the Yankees Saturday.
Trailing 5-4 in the fifth, Shelton went to Holderman with two runners on base and nobody out. Three batters later, Anthony Volpe launched a bases-loaded double to put the Yankees up four. The game might not have been out of reach then, but the Pirates could not battle back and fell to 2-7 on the year, with the bullpen being a main culprit for that slow start.
"I've got to keep going,” Holderman said afterward. “There's been some unlucky stuff, and there's also been stuff that's self-inflicted. Going in there today, I thought I made some good pitches, and they just didn't go my way. I thought I made a good pitch to Volpe there. I didn't think it was going to go that far. It did. So it's something I've got to figure out.
“No one cares more than I do, and I'm going to keep going, and I'm going to fix it."
When Holderman is clicking, he’s usually throwing four-seamers to left-handers to try to get whiffs, sinkers to right-handers to get ground balls and a healthy dose of sweepers and cutters to everyone.
On Saturday, Volpe pounced on the cutter. Hitters are 4-for-7 on the year against the sweeper after hitting just .163 against it last year. Batters have an average exit velocity above 100 mph against Holderman’s four-seamer on the young season. There’s not much to hang onto right now.
The pitches have comparable spin, movement and velocity to last year, so it’s not like Holderman has had a big dropoff. After Saturday’s game, Holderman theorized sequencing could be part of the issue.
“People are keying in every series, ‘Who can we look at in the bullpen?’” Holderman said. “I think I'm definitely one of those guys, so maybe I've got to change my plan a little bit.”
Until Holderman figures something out, it sounds like he might not get as many looks in higher leverage spots. His inning in the fifth ended up being very consequential and was a big spot at the time, but as Shelton pointed out, “That’s the fifth inning today. It wasn’t the seventh or eighth.”
“We’re trying to find him a spot maybe earlier in the game to get him going,” Shelton said. “We’ve got to figure out a way to get him going.”
Holderman is searching for a way to get going, too. The Pirates are in need of leverage relievers to add some stability to the bullpen, and it’s going to be tough to do if Bednar and Holderman aren’t contributing.
"I've been through these stretches before,” Holderman said. “Last year I had a rough stretch there at the end in August, and I've gotten through that. I don't think that it's something I can't get through. I'll be just fine. I'm taking it one day at a time. I know my stuff is good. I'm punching a lot of people out right now, and that's always a good sign for my stuff.
“It's just one little unlucky thing each inning that's [happened]. Literally it's just one hitter an outing. If we can eliminate that, we have a zero. So I'm not worried too hard about it. I'll be just fine."