Final Score: Pirates 2 A’s 11
Why The Pirates Loss: The offense could not get the 2 out hit. Even though the Pirates won the first game of the series, this has been the big difference. In the Cardinal series, the Pirates scored all their runs with 2 outs. In this game they were 0 for 13 with runners in scoring position and left 9 runners on base. Mitch Keller had his 3rd mediocre performance in a row. In fact, you could call this outing just plain bad. It is concerning that Keller just seems to be getting worse not better. In just 5 and 1/3 innings he gave up 8 hits, charged with 5 runs, walked 4, while striking out only 1 batter. At least we did not have to listen to the Pirate booth talk about so many games in a row with 8 strikeouts. There was still some hope going into the 8th inning with the score 5-2 A’s, when Chase De Jong entered the game. De Jong pitched a splendid 2 innings giving up 6 runs, on 5 hits, including 3 home runs, walking 1, striking out 2, while throwing 53 pitches. However, all is not lost for De Jong. He got calls from numerous players who are considering participating in the home run derby, asking if he would be their pitcher. The loss sent the Pirates tumbling out of 1st place with a record of 32-28.
Key Moment Of The Game: In the bottom of the first the Pirates are facing a pitcher that has not won a game and has an ERA of over 8. Marcano opens the game with a double and Reynolds walks. McCutchen flies out. Jack Suwinski hits a perfect double play ball that goes right between the 2nd baseman’s legs, that scores Marcano and the Pirates have 1st and 3rd with one out, instead of the inning being over. It looks like the A’s are going to give us another one. Connor Joe pops out, Josh Palacios flies out and Pirates let a golden opportunity slip through their fingers. Starting pitcher James Kaprielian goes on to pitch a nice solid 6 innings, giving up only one more run to get his 1st win of the season.
Next Game: This afternoon, the A’s in Pittsburgh. The Pirates have bookend blow out losses around their 6 game winning streak. Maybe another good streak will start after this blow out loss. The A’s have only won 2 games in a row twice this season, although they recently beat the Atlanta Braves 2 in a row in Oakland. Roansy Contreras starts today for the Pirates. The year has not been kind to Contreras so far. He has been very up and down. Maybe he will find something today. I will admit I have softened some on the importance of this series. If the Pirates lose today it won’t be the disaster that I felt it would be when the series started. I think it is more important for Contreras to throw a good solid game today than what the final result will be. On Friday will be the 61 Game Report which will take a hard look at the 2023 Pirates with close to 40% of the season played.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 