Tag: Can anybody throw strikes

Final Score: Pirates 3 Mets 8

Why The Pirates Lost: Another poor performance by a starting pitcher, this time Johan Oviedo, who looked like he wanted to anywhere but on the mound. He looked sluggish, his fast ball velocity was down (another one), and he had no command. Other than that, he pitched a good game. He gave up 4 runs in 4 innings and not to be out done the bullpen gave up 4 runs in 4 innings, good job. I will have more on the pitching when I do the 121-game report, tomorrow. This series featured two teams with about the same record even though they have vastly different payrolls. All three games had similar underlying themes. They were looooooooooooooong. Yesterday’s game was the shortest at 2 hours and 54 minutes. The other two were a little short and a little beyond 3hours. There were a lot of walks. Game 1 had 11 walks, while games 2 and 3 had 13 walks. What made this worse that most of the time teams did not take much advantage of the walks, especially the Pirates. Most of the runs scored on home runs. The Mets hit 8 home runs during the series and the Pirates 2. Other than blow out wins or losses, these were the most boring games the Pirates played all year. The incompetence of both teams was damn scary at this level.

Key Moments Of The Game: The Pirates were trailing 4-2 going into the top of the 5th. Other than the Bryan Reynolds’ 2 run home run, the offense had not really done much, and looked like they were going down quietly in the 5th when two quick outs were made. Andrew McCutchen walked, and Jack Suwinski lined a ball down into the right field corner. McCutchen was waved home and was thrown out on a close play. The Mets’ relay was perfect, one of the few really good plays in the entire series. How would the Pirates know that the Mets would finally execute a routine baseball play? Oviedo opened the bottom of the 5th by walking the first batter on 6 pitches, the last 3 not being anywhere near the plate, after being ahead in the count 1-2. Shelton had seen enough and brought in Ryan Borucki the left hander. Things looked good when Pete Alonso was caught stealing and Jeff McNeil flew out to center. But then Borucki walked (what else) The Turtle (who else) and DJ Stewart hit his 2nd home run of the game to put the Mets ahead 6-2 and the game was over.

Next Game: Tomorrow, Twins in Minnesota. Tomorrow will be the final in season report on these Pirates. I am going to concentrate on management tomorrow, so it will not be pretty.