Pirates bats give Jared Jones little help in loss to Giants

Starting pitcher Jared Jones stood up to adversity and — without exhibiting his best stuff on the mound — gave his team a chance to win.

Rowdy Tellez snapped out of a monthlong slump by ripping his first two doubles of the season and — with a veteran’s wisdom — reminded everyone to simply take a look at the calendar.

But those moments did not mask the reality of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 3-2 loss Sunday to the Giants (14-15) at Oracle Park in San Francisco. Yes, there is plenty of baseball yet to be played. But after a 9-2 start raised hopes for the second consecutive season, the Pirates have lost 13 of 18 games.

More to the point, scoring runs has been a struggle. The Pirates (14-15) have scored two or fewer in nine of their past 13 games.

“You have your ups and downs, peaks and valleys,” Tellez said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “You want to ride those hot streaks and ride those peaks and get out of those valleys as fast as you can. Sometimes, you run into good pitching, and you just don’t feel good in the box. I don’t think any of us will say we’re at our best right now. It’s little by little, game by game.”

After raising his average to .205, Tellez added, “I’m not as far off as I feel, and I’m not as far off as people think I am.”

He said veterans such as himself can help in tough times.

“It’s a long season. When you have these rough spells, you just know you’re going to get out of them,” he said. “You also hope that younger players lean on you when they’re struggling. I’ll always be an open book for the young players to talk to.”

While there appears to be hope in the clubhouse, the Pirates are wasting good starting pitching. After the Pirates came into the game with the fourth-most quality starts in MLB (13), Jones was one inning shy of making it 14 by blanking the Giants in four of his five innings.

He walked only one batter and allowed six hits, five in the third inning when Thairo Estrada and Mike Yastrzemski hit back-to-back home runs batting in the seventh and eighth spots in the order. A third and, ultimately, decisive run scored on a sacrifice fly by LaMonte Wade Jr.

Jones struck out a season-low three batters — four fewer than his previous low — but he didn’t let the three-run third leak into later innings.

“Jared did a good job of calming down and keeping it under wraps,” manager Derek Shelton said. “It looked like he got sped up in his delivery and kind of ran away from his fastball a little bit. It’s the first time we’ve seen it. When he ran away from (his fastball) with his delivery, it got to the middle of the plate and you cannot get to the middle of the plate with the guys they have in their lineup. He still only gave up three runs to a really good lineup.

“Our pitchers did a really good job in this series.”

Indeed, the Giants scored just three runs in each of the three games, winning two.

“I just didn’t feel comfortable out there,” said Jones after his record fell to 2-3 in his sixth start. “Obviously, I didn’t have my best stuff. They took advantage of it. I left some pitches over the plate.”

But he was pleased with “just not crumbling, keeping the same mindset of attacking guys.”

He did have a bit of trouble with the dirt on the mound early in the game. He asked the grounds crew to fix the issue, which they did, but he didn’t mention it in his postgame availability until a reporter brought it up.

“That’s just an excuse, and it’s not a good one,” he said.

Jones and relief pitchers Luis Ortiz and Kyle Nicolas kept the game close. Nicolas pitched a three-up, three-down eighth inning, with two strikeouts in his season debut after getting called up from Triple-A Indianapolis on Friday.

“It confirms what I believe in myself,” Nicolas said. “The biggest thing is go out and do it. When I’m on the attack, when I’m in the zone, good things happen. It’s a step in the right direction for me.”

The Pirates scored single runs in the fifth and ninth. In the fifth, Edward Olivares was hit by a pitch, advanced to third on Tellez’s first double and scored on Jared Triolo’s groundout. In the ninth, Tellez doubled and scored on Triolo’s single, but pinch-hitter Joey Bart grounded out to shortstop on a check swing to end the rally and the game. The potential tying run was on second base.

Shelton was pleased that Tellez started to find gaps in the outfield. His doubles went to left-center and right-center.

“Good swings, good at-bats,” Shelton said. “Good to see him back in the middle of the field. There is more confidence in the takes, which a couple hits, a couple good at-bats will do that.”

Still, the Pirates managed only three other hits and were 1 for 7 with runners in scoring position.

“We just keep going,” Shelton said. “We’re still in April. We have to get some guys who get their footing a little bit. We’re slowly getting there. We need to get there a little faster.”