Final Score: Pirates 0 Mariners 1
Why The Pirates Lost: For the second straight game, the Pirates were shut out. This time they were more inept than the game before. They never got a runner to 2nd base. They had 2 hits, both by Spencer Horwitz. Tommy Pham walked for their only other base runner. They struck out 11 times. This series has that same eerie feeling as the Cardinal series, but with the Pirates in the Cardinals role. The Pirates won the first game of the Cardinals series 7-0. They lost to the Mariners 6-0. They beat the Cardinals 1-0 in game 2. The Mariners beat the Pirates by the same score in game 2. Mike Burrows had a nice outing. In 5 innings, he gave up 3 hits and 4 walks. I guess the law of averages caught up with Caleb Ferguson. He gave up the only run of the game. He had only given up 1 run since May 17th over his last 19 appearances. The Pirates start this road trip 0-2 as they head for the All-Star break. Is the glitch the 43 runs they scored on the 6-game win streak? Or is the glitch being shut out for 2 games in a row? We should find out today.
Key Moments Of The Game: The Pirates had no key offensive moments. They reverted back to the Triple P offense. Passive. Putrid. Pathetic. The ninth was a synopsis of the game. They took 3 strikes, Passive. They swung at 5 strikes, missing 4, Putrid. They swung and missed at one ball, Pathetic. Caleb Ferguson came on in the bottom of the 6th inning. He gave up a leadoff double. The runner advanced to 3rd on a ground out. Ferguson got the next batter to ground out to Hayes, holding the runner on 3rd for the 2nd out. There was optimism that he would get out of the inning. Ben Williamson took a 3-1 pitch that wasn’t bad and drilled it into right field. It fell for a base hit and the Mariners had the deciding run. Ferguson then loaded the bases with a hit batsman and a walk. Isaac Mattson came on and struck out Julio Rodriguez on a tough six-pitch at bat. This ended the threat. At the time, you hoped that this might be a key moment for the Pirates. Alas, it was not. Let’s hope the offense perks back up today.
Next Game: This afternoon, Mariners in Seattle. Paul Skenes goes for the Pirates today. He may be more jinxed than Keller. This would be a great day for the Pirate offense to bounce back. It would also be great for Skenes to throw a nice 7 to 8-inning shutout. We shall simply call this glitch day. Will the real Pirate offense please stand up? It is a little scary if you ask me. The suspense is killing me. It’s just like waiting to see if Greg Brown will ever pronounce Horwitz’s name correctly. I guess the difference is we all know that is not happening. With the Pirate offense there is at least a chance.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 