Final Score: Pirates 3 Marlins 2
Why The Pirates Won: For about the 6th time this year the Pirates won a game to keep from going below .500. The pitching staff gave up under 3 runs for the first time in 8 games. The Pirates were able to overcome many bad decisions by the manager and the players to pull out a hard fought 3-2 win. They snapped the 6 game Marlins winning streak. You could say the Marlins snapped it themselves. Bubba Chandler pitched one of his better games of the year giving up 2 runs on 3 hits and walking just one batter. The only criticism is that he gave up hits on 3 pitchers counts. There were two 0-2 and one 1-2 counts that ended up being hits. He should have been allowed to finish the 6th inning but Don Kelly thought it would be a good idea to bring in a left hander to face right handed batters. It was not and the Marlins tied the game. This game boiled down to a very strange 8th inning.
Key Moments Of The Game: The score was tied 2-2 going into the fateful 8th inning. Yohan (How Many Outs Are There) Ramirez started the inning for the Pirates. He gave up a single and then walked the next batter on 5 pitches with none of the 4 balls anywhere near the plate. He came back and struck out the next batter on 3 pitches. He fell behind Heriberto Hernandez 3-0. The 4th pitch was just barely below the strike zone but was called a strike. No challenge or the bases would have been loaded. Ramirez came back with 2 good pitches to strike him out. Ramirez was headed for the dugout. One problem, there were just 2 outs. Leo Jimenez helped Ramirez out by swinging at two balls way low and outside. Pitch 3 was low but called a strike and Ramirez was headed off the field again. This time it was challenged and overturned. Back out he came to throw two more pitches outside the strike zone, but Jimenez swung at the last one to strike out. Ramirez struck out a batter without throwing a pitch in the zone. More importantly he headed for the dugout for third time and finally was right. The bottom of the 8th was a complete opposite. The first two Pirate batters struck out. Tyler Callihan and Jake Mangum singled putting runners on 1st and 3rd. Mangum stole 2nd with no play. This is where the Marlins handed the game to the Pirates on a silver platter. First they walked one of the worst hitters in baseball Jared Triolo on 5 pitches. Wasting no time they hit Spencer Horwitz on the first pitch of the at bat and the Pirates led 3-2. Brandon Lowe made the last out after failing to challenge a pitch that would have forced in another run. The 9th was shaky for Gregory Soto but after that 8th inning you just knew the Pirates were going to pull out the game.
Next Game: Noon, Marlins in Pittsburgh. The Pirates are on Peacock today on what’s called the opener or something like that. Paul Skenes starts today and hopefully the Pirates will get back into some run prevention again. The Pirates need this series win to get some momentum heading on the road. I wonder if the Pirates realize that.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 