Final Score: Pirates 7 Dodgers 8
Why The Pirates Lost: Simply just too many mistakes. Three errors to begin with one allowing 2 runs to score in the 1st inning on a little bloop double. The Pirate pitchers walked 4 and 3 of those scored. Oviedo went 5.1 innings and seemed to rely too much on his breaking ball but even so did not have any real good luck. Three runs scored on two bloop hits. This time Colin Holderman made it too interesting giving up the big 3 run blast by the .163 hitting Chris Taylor. The Pirate hitters had a big night scoring 7 runs on 12 hits and a walk, but it was not good enough and their record fell to 16-8.
Key Moments Of The Game: In the bottom of the 1st the Pirates had scored 1 run to cut the lead in half and had runners on 1st and 2nd with 2 out. Connor Joe then hit a drive down the line in left, that David Peralta made a great diving catch, preventing the Pirates from scoring 2 more runs. The Pirates had the bases loaded with 2 outs in the bottom of the 8th. They had loaded the bases on a single, walk and a hit batsman. Andrew McCutchen, who hit the big 3 run homer in bottom of the 4th to give the Pirates a 7-2 lead, worked the count out to 3-1. He swung on a high inside pitch that may or may not have been called a strike and popped out to the catcher to end the inning. All in all, it was not the Pirates night. It was one of their few pitching failure losses of the season. Hopefully, it will be a while before the next one.
The Next Game: Tonight, Dodgers in Pittsburgh. It will be up to Roansy Contreras to try and get the Pirates back on track. Tony Gonsolin will be making his first start of the season for the Dodgers. Whether the Pirates win or lose tonight I do not think is critical, but they need to play a much cleaner game. The team does seem to have a certain amount of resiliency, so a bounce back is likely.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 