Final Score: Pirates 2 Braves 8
Why The Pirates Lost: They are playing the Atlanta Braves. In fairness to the Mitch Keller, even though his stats looked bad, in the bottom of 3rd, the Braves had 6 singles and 4 of them were under 80 MPH. The other 2 were 83 and 94 MPH. It is bad enough you are playing the team in the National League with the best record, but then they get a bunch of soft serve hits that result in 4 runs. In the bottom of the fourth they did hit some rockets including a 2-run homer to score 3 more runs. The only good thing, that despite a combined 10 runs, 18 strikeouts and 3 walks, the game only took 2 hours and 14 minutes to play. It was a humane slaughter by the Braves. The Pirate offense was about as ineffective as you could get. In the first and third innings, they had a runner on 2nd with no one out and failed to score. Jack Suwinski did hit a 2-run homer for the Pirates scoring, but they were only able to manage 5 other hits for the game. Overall, just an expected beating with 2 more to come.
Key Moment Of The Game: When Pirates plane touched down in Atlanta. The Pirates could not take advantage of the early scoring opportunities and the Braves fortunate 3rd inning set the tone for the game. I know this is only one game, but it shows how far the Pirates have to go before they can really contend for a championship. It was nice to see how the game should be played even though it was an opponent of the Pirates and not the Pirates.
Next Slaughter: Tonight, Braves in Atlanta. Johan Oviedo takes the mound tonight and if he thinks he was uncomfortable in his last outing, wait until he faces this lineup. He may not be able to move. The Pirates are facing Dylan Dodd, who has an ERA of over 7 through 5 games but has a record of 2-1. Maybe the Pirates can out hit the Braves tonight. I apologize for writing that.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 