J.A. Happ: 'I know I can be better than I was tonight'

LHP J.A. Happ (Matt Freed/Post-Gazette)

Welcome to Pittsburgh, J.A. Happ. There’s a horde of angry Yinzers outside who’d like a word with you. Or perhaps with GM Neal Huntington, whose trade-deadline moves have so far not resulted in much production for the Pirates, who lost 5-0 Tuesday night.

Happ allowed eight hits and four runs in 4 1/3 innings. He wasn’t the only problem in the defeat — "We couldn't score runs,“ Francisco Cervelli offered, for one. ”We've got to score runs." — but he certainly wasn’t effective. He pitched deep in counts, elevating his pitch count early, and left balls up and over the plate often.

"I'm going to be better, determined to be better, and looking forward to the next one," Happ said.

Here’s the very nice way Clint Hurdle described Happ’s outing: "There were some solid sequences throughout the evening. The overall consistency, we've got to get some improvement there. You saw quality pitches just about every at-bat. ... We've got some things to focus on moving forward."

Happ loaded the bases in the first — due in part to Aramis Ramirez’s throwing error — and walked in a run in his first inning in a Pirates uniform.

“This is the big leagues,” Cervelli said. “You make mistakes, and you pay.”

Otherwise, Happ was pretty hittable, whereas Jake Arrieta was not.

"I knew we were going up against a tough guy there, so I was trying to keep it as close as I could,“ Happ said. ”Didn't work out tonight."

Happ, 32, said he was anxious to get this debut under his belt. He knew he put the Pirates in a tough spot by not going deeper into the game. He also agreed with what Los Angeles Dodgers All-Star starters Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke said recently: the Cubs make you throw a lot of pitches, man. They might strike out a lot (14 times tonight), but they’re not getting out in three pitches or fewer.

"They're a dangerous bunch,“ Happ said. ”They have a lot of power, a lot of speed. They laid off some good pitches — I expected them to swing at some of them, to be honest — and that makes it tougher to come back and exectue your next pitch."

Happ now is 4-7 with a 4.78 ERA. In four starts since the All-Star break, however, his ERA is 9.18. (He hasn’t posted a sub-4.00 ERA in any season since 2010.)

"I need to trust my stuff and continue to be aggressive,“ he explained when asked about his recent fall-off in production. ”Hits are going to happen, runs are going to happen in this game. When they do, continuing to trust my stuff and trust that it plays and works at this level. If I have more of that attitude, good things will happen."

Happ’s next outing is scheduled to come on the road against the St. Louis Cardinals. He’ll spend the in-between days getting comfortable with his catchers — both Cervelli and Happ said it takes a while to develop a rapport — and trying to fill a big hole in the Pirates rotation.

"I wasn't thinking about trying to fill [A.J. Burnett’s] shoes,“ Happ said. ”I was just trying to come in and be the best me I can be. I know I can be better than I was tonight."