Final Score: Pirates 1 Rays 6
Why The Pirates Lost: After the Marlins series, Derek (The Shadow) Shelton shared his thoughts. He stated that the Pirates were competitive in every game. It was like that was something extraordinary against one of the worst teams in baseball. Their competitiveness ended last night. The offense can only be described as amazing. The Pirates scored one run on 4 hits. They struck out 10 times and did not draw one walk. They hit only 10 balls over 90 MPH, and 7 of them were ground balls. At the end of the night, 7 of the 9 starters had batting averages of .200 or less. This offensive machine is led by Endy Rodriguez .083, Tommy (I Come Cheap) Pham .118, and Ke’Bryan Hayes .125. To be fair to the Pirates, they did play a major league team last night. The Rays racked up Pirate pitching for 6 runs on 10 hits. They did strike out 10 times also but were able to draw 5 walks. What about those competitive Marlins? They lost to the Mets last night 10-4. The Mets scored 4 fewer runs than the Pirates did for the entire series.
Key Moment Of The Game: When the Pirates decided to solve their rotation problem by making Carmen Mlodzinski a starter. They could have chosen a couple of younger players who are starters. Another bad idea by the Pirates just to save money in the long term. Mlodzinski hung in there for three innings. However, he got hit hard in the bottom of the 4th. He gave up 4 runs. Shelton finally took him out. The bullpen gave up a couple of more runs, which is not shocking. The Pirates are 1-4 now and seem in total disarray. This season could be over by April 15th. The Pirates have two more with the Rays and then the Yankees come to town. It is very possible the Pirates could be 1-9 by Sunday.
Next Game: Tonight, Rays in Tampa. Tonight is supposed to be a bullpen game to give Paul Skenes an extra day of rest. Skenes reportedly has said he would like at least 6 more days of rest. He would like to pitch next on April 7th against the Cardinals. How many runs do you think the Rays will score tonight? Which bullpen guy is going to have to take the big beating? Shelton is probably losing sleep over that one. A couple of years back, he allowed a young reliever to throw 48 pitches in one inning before he got the first out. He wound up throwing 55 pitches and finally finished the inning. Shelton said he felt bad about not taking him out. He lost a night’s sleep over it. He would not admit that he fell asleep between pitches 8 and 43. Let’s be real here. We are talking about a small sample size in the big scheme of things. Even so, this has been one scary start to the season.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 