Final Score: Pirates 0 Cardinals 5
Why The Pirates Lost: The Pirates were shut out and only had 4 hits for the second consecutive game. They struck out 10 times and had 1 walk. Their starting lineup was not all that bad. The exception was Tommy Pham, but he got one of the hits. Mitch Keller pitched ok, but with this team, it is not good enough. The bullpen gave up 2 runs in the 9th. The Pirates were never in the game. Their record fell to 12 and 26. They are 29th in runs per game; only the Rockies are worse. They are 24th in on-base percentage. The Toronto Blue Jays are the only team that has hit fewer home runs than the Pirates. They are 29th in slugging and 29th in OPS+. The bottom line is the Pirate offense has been awful all year. They are 22nd in the league in runs allowed per game. The pitching has not been all that great. Some of this could be due to being under so much stress to pitch well. The pitchers know the Pirates are not going to score a lot of runs. The Pirate pitching staff doesn’t do too badly in Fielding Independent Pitching, ranking 15th. The Pirates are 15th in Defensive Efficiency. It is the offense that is making this club 14 games below .500.
Key Moments Of The Game: There is no doubt the Pirates have been very bad all season. This game was a game of bad luck to boot. Since the Pirates did not score any runs, this wasn’t a bad game to have bad luck. Keller struck out the first batter in the bottom of the 3rd. He then gave up a walk to Victor Scott II. Lars Nootbaar singled to right center field. Scott was breaking on the pitch and scored all the way from first base. The score was 1-0. Masyn Winn hit a 58 MPH blooper right down the right field line. It was a double. The score was quickly 2-0. This would be all the runs the Cardinals would need. They got a seeing-eye ground ball single off Colin Holderman in the bottom of the 8th to extend the lead to 5-0. The Cardinals brought in another reliever with an ERA of around 7 to pitch the 9th inning. Of course, the Pirates went down quietly to lose their 7th straight.
Next Game: Tomorrow night, Braves in Pittsburgh. Things are not going to get any easier for the Pirates. The next 9 games are against the beasts in the NL East. A weekend home stand against the Braves, followed by a 6-game road trip to the Mets and Phillies. This is by far the worst Pirates team of this century. The sad part is it would not have to be this way. The Pirates should just play the best players they have in the organization. This includes pitchers. The Pirates made no legitimate free agent moves this past off-season. This franchise under Bob Nutting has always been cheap. For whatever reason, this year they have become downright miserly. More on that tomorrow. We will see if any moves are made today.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 