Final Score: Pirates 0 Guardians 11
Why The Pirates Lost: The Pirates brought up 3 players yesterday, Quinn Priester, Endy Rodriguez and Liover Peguero. It was a rude reception. Priester gave up 7 runs in 5 and 1/3 innings. Both Rodriguez and Peguero were hitless, striking out 5 times between them. It was a blowout loss as the Guardians scored at least 1 run in each of the last 6 innings, while the Pirates took my challenge of getting shut out for an entire series, like the Reds, seriously, and are a third of the way home. There were things the management team did in this game, while it would not have affected the outcome, is mind boggling, nonetheless. I do not understand leading off with Suwinski. He is 0 for post All Star break and this is his MO. He goes through some long hitless streaks. This is not the man you want at the top of the order. It was hard to believe that they left Priester in as long as they did, to take the beating he took. After pitching a solid opening 3 innings where he sent 9 batters down in a row, you could see for whatever reason he was starting to lose command. In the beginning he was throwing nothing but strikes and did have this ridiculous low pitch count after 3 innings. He would up throwing 73 pitches and only 47 wound up being strikes. Granted the big hits came fast and furious but you could see it coming if you were paying any attention, which apparently the Pirate dugout was not. Of course, when you don’t score any runs, it doesn’t really matter what you do managerial wise.
Key Moment Of The Game: There was none. Once the Guardians started teeing off on Priester this game was over. The Pirates did get a one out double in the bottom of the 5th inning with score 3-0 but failed to do anything. The Pirates have now lost 4 in a row.
Next Game: Tonight, Guardians in Pittsburgh. Despite the disastrous game, I like all the moves the Pirates made to bring up the young players. Mitch Keller pitches tonight and he has pitched only 1 inning since July 8th. Why, I don’t know. If he has a bad outing tonight, I am sure they will blame it on being rusty. The last time the Pirates were blown out they followed it up with a 6 game winning streak. Could it happen again. Listen, when you are a Pirate fan you grab for straws.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 