Final Score: Pirates 4 Giants 5 in 10 innings.
Why the Pirates Lost: This team does not know how to play fundamental baseball. The Pirates have scored a lot of runs this season. There have been too many games where they could have scored more runs if they had run the bases better or had performed situational hitting at a given moment. Last night was a perfect example. Brandon Lowe led off the bottom of the sixth with a double. Bryan Reynolds hit a line drive to deep right-center field that Drew Gilbert made a solid running catch on, taking him even further to right field. Lowe did not tag up. If he had, he would have easily made it to third base and scored on the Nick Gonzales ground ball. If everything else had played out, the Pirates would have won the game 4-3 in nine innings. Instead, they lost 5-4 in ten innings. In the bottom of the tenth, Oneil Cruz and Esmerlyn Valdez had two typical Pirate strikeouts. Cruz struck out on two pitches that were not in the strike zone. That is somewhat better than Valdez, who took 2 called strikes that were 95 MPH right down the middle and slightly above the knees. You have to wonder what he was looking for—something out of the strike zone. Again, more failures in baseball fundamentals, plate discipline, and knowledge of the strike zone cost the Pirates scoring opportunities. Whether this is just the type of players the Pirates have or it is a coaching staff failure makes no difference. Besides the reason why they lost last night’s game, it has also cost them from being in the playoffs.
Key Moments Of The Game: Bubba Chandler pitched well for 5 innings. However, the walk came back to haunt him again in the top of the 5th. With a runner on second and one out, Chandler walked Gilbert. The Pirates lost a pop-up in the sky that fell between Triolo, Cruz, and Valdez to load the bases. Chandler threw an 0-2 pitch right down the middle to Bryce Eldridge, who hit it deep enough to center field to score run number two. Turner Hill took the first pitch and ripped it into right field to make the score 3-1. The Pirates were able to tie the game to send it into extra innings. The Pirate broadcast booth was bemoaning the fact that both Bryan Reynolds in the 8th and Jacob Gonzalez in the 9th just missed home runs by about a foot. They called it a game of inches. They were right to some degree; luck was not on the Pirates’ side last night. If they had played good, solid fundamental baseball, they would have won despite the bad luck. They are now 5.5 games out of the wild card with 22 games to play. I guess you could call these games meaningful, but just barely.
Next Game: This afternoon, the Giants in Pittsburgh. The Pirates are going to have a bullpen game today. They have been pretty successful when they have gone that route. It will be fun to watch the Pirates stick to their “game plan” rather than let the game determine how long to use each pitcher. The lineup should be interesting today also. We will be waiting with anticipation to see what baseball fundamental the Pirates fail at today. The win streak was stopped a 3. Unfortunately, it was stopped by the Pirates themselves. They are one game out of last place. Stay tuned.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 