Final Score: Pirates 2 Nationals 6
Why The Pirates Lost: This one is easy. They couldn’t pitch, they couldn’t hit, they couldn’t field, and they couldn’t run the bases. But enough of the Pirates, the Nationals put on quite a display on the bases themselves. First, Keibert Ruiz singled to right field and then had designs of stretching it into a double. He put on the brakes about 30 feet from the bag and tried to get back to first but was out by a mile. Later in the game, Dominic Smith hits a ball off the wall in right center field, that if you heard Greg Brown tell it, Josh Palacios bobbled the ball on purpose. Smith, who runs a 7 sec. 40-yard dash, saw this and tried to go third. He was thrown out at third by a mile. The Pirates not to be out done, had runners on 1st and 3rd with 2 outs and the score was 2-1 Nationals in the bottom of the third. Then Connor Joe got picked off first and Bryan Reynolds tried to score and was thrown out easily. Greg Brown thought this was not a planned play. The Pirate pitching stunk as any pitcher who pitched more than 1 inning gave up a home run. We’re not going to mention any names here just to have some respect for their families and any children they might be involved. The Pirate bats were just as bad. They could only muster 2 runs on 7 hits, 2 walks, while striking out 10 times. Then there was the double play that wasn’t. Luis Garcia hit a ground ball to 2nd that Liover Peguero fed perfectly to Alika Williams to start what would have been an inning ending double play. Instead of setting himself and throwing a hard strike to first base, he came flying across the bag, half stumbling, throwing weakly to 1st enabling the lumbering 6’2″ 220 lb. Garcia to beat it out, allowing the 4th run to score.
Key Moment Of The Game. The score was 6-1. going into the bottom of the 7th and the Pirates could only scrape together 1 run on 2 doubles and a walk. It was simply their last chance to get back in the game and they could not get the big hit. Other than the home runs that were given up, all the runs the Nationals scored and all the runs the Pirates did not score could all be attributed to a lack of baseball sense by the Pirates. Coaches, where are you? Who knows, only The Shadow knows.
Next Game: Tonight, the Nationals in Pittsburgh. A very disappointing start to the homestand. It was not so much about the loss, as it was on just how badly the Pirates played. Hopefully this was nothing more than a glitch, with the Pirates righting the ship tonight. The Pirates have not announced a pitcher. 75 wins is in jeopardy.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 