5 big 2020 Pirates questions: Can the starting rotation keep team afloat?

With the Pirates ramping up to their 60-game sprint of a season, each day this week at “Breakfast With Benz,” we will be examining the five most pressing questions facing the team.

The Pirates open the season on Friday, July 24 in St. Louis.

Tuesday’s question: What should the Pirates do with Cole Tucker?

Wednesday’s question: Is the Pirates starting rotation good enough to keep them in contention for 60 games?

Wednesday’s answer: Only if all the hitters become the modern versions of the Lumber Company.

When asked what he liked about Joe Musgrove’s intrasquad-scrimmage pitching performance Monday, Derek Shelton replied, “What wasn’t there to like?”

Shelton then gushed about Musgrove’s ability to repeat the pitch. His feel about his pitches. And his solid changeup. Shelton insisted that the only mistake pitch of his whole outing was one that Josh Bell knocked out of the park.

The hope is that kind of performance becomes more of the norm for Musgrove than the tantalizing tease he frequently gives Pirates fans.

The hope is that Mitch Keller can fulfill his promise and hype.

The hope is that Trevor Williams rediscovers his dominance of 2018 and flushes his step-back year of 2019.

Seeing as how — in order — their respective ERAs last year were 4.44, 5.38, and 7.13, that’s a lot of hope.

And if that’s just “hope,” then how would you best describe the fourth and fifth starters which very well may be some hybrid combination of Derek Holland and a “piggyback” set up of Chad Kuhl and Steven Brault?

Wing and a prayer? Hail Mary? Throwing darts?

“I don’t live in a ‘hope’ world,” Shelton said Wednesday. “I live in a world where I think I’m optimistic. I don’t think that we, as an organization, base anything on hope. We wanna base it on fact and information. Watching what guys do.”

To that point, though, in a recent simulated game, the Pirates trotted out the piggyback effort of Brault and Kuhl. Brault had a no-hitter through three innings. Shelton was asked about that Tuesday. And he mentioned the conversation that has already been had with those pitchers that, in a real game situation, if something like that would occur, the starting pitcher would have to be prepared to get pulled.

Preparing for a no-hitter out of the “piggyback” duo in a real game sounds awfully hopeful to me.

So let’s try to set some attainable goals for these starters. Is it too optimistic to suggest that Musgrove is going to become a legit front of the rotation, top-flight ace this year? Yes.

Getting his ERA down to about 3.75 for the first time as a big leaguer isn’t. That’s reasonable.

Wishing that Williams resembles the guy, who went 7-3 with a 1.38 ERA and batting average against of .217 in the second half of 2018, is like wishing to hit the Powerball.

For a second time.

“The thing that stands out is his ability to execute pitches,” Shelton said. “That’s something he has continued to work on.

“I think at one time last year he felt like he lost his delivery.”

Getting Williams even close to his 3.11 ERA for that season overall and a prorated version of 14-10 over 170 innings would be glorious. A bit optimistic still. But not beyond reality if the new pitching staff can rediscover that delivery.

Then, I don’t think it’s unfair to say that if Shelton can get through five innings with Holland and six between the “piggyback” tandem, without the games being blowouts so the hitters can keep it close over the last three or four innings, that’ll suffice.

Keller is the wild card. No one is saying the kid has to have major league hitters figured out after 11 starts — and one offseason — into his big-league career.

I am saying, that for the Pirates to be at all competitive, he better understand how to avoid getting knocked around like he was last season.

Yeah, he had some bad luck last year. Making his own luck by getting that fastball of his to miss the bat more often will sure help. And sprinkling in a useful changeup will be good, too.

When Gerrit Cole was 24, he had his best year as a Pirate (19-8, 2.60 ERA, 202 strikeouts). It was his third year in the majors. When Jameson Taillon was 24, he was 5-4 with an ERA of 3.38 and a strikeout-walk ratio of 85-17. It was his first big-league season.

Keller just turned 24 in April. He doesn’t need to be as good as those guys. But he needs to vastly improve.

Shelton is on record as saying the pitching is ahead of the hitting to start the rebooted spring training. That’s a good thing. I have no doubt the hitting will catch up.

How long the pitching can keep up is my much greater concern.