Tag: Giving Atlanta a victtory

Final Score: Pirates 2 Braves 3 in 11 innings

Why The Pirates Lost: The Pirates simply gift-wrapped this one for the Braves. The Pirates’ offense was anemic as ever. This game, they turned it into an art form. Some of these stats are mind-boggling. They had 9 hits, 6 walks but only scored 2 runs. They were 2 for 18 with runners in scoring position. They left 14 men on base. The top 3 in the batting order went 0 for 14 with 5 strikeouts. Despite this historic ineptitude, the Pirates barely lost this game. The game went into extra innings. The pitchers did a brilliant job for 10 and 2/3 innings. They allowed 2 runs on 5 hits. It ended on the wildest of wild pitches. Chase Shugart threw the ball behind and over the head of the batter. The third and deciding run scored. Don Kelly got ejected in the top of the 6th inning in his second game as manager. He is now only 161 games behind Bobby Cox. This was a tough loss to swallow. In the immortal words of Derek Shelton, “We are happy that we are competitive.”

Key Moments Of The Game: The Pirates had so many opportunities to win the game that it is hard to call them key moments. There was none better than in the bottom of the 9th. The first two batters, Oneil Cruz and Tommy Pham, walked. Andrew McCutchen was at the plate. On a 1-1 count, the pitcher threw a slider on the lower outer third of the plate. Instead of trying to go with the pitch, he pulled it. McCutchen should have done better than this. He hit a perfect double play ball. Henry Davis hit a weak ground ball, what else, to end the inning. The Pirates had a runner on third with one out in both extra innings. They failed miserably in trying to win and tie the game. After the stirring victory the night before this one was really hard to take.

Next Game: This afternoon, Braves in Pittsburgh. What makes last night’s loss even more galling is that Chris Sale is pitching for the Braves today. He had gotten off to a slow start, but his last outing was lights out. Cruz suffered a back injury. This will be a good day to take off. Despite the manager change, the Mlodzinski experiment continues. We will see if Don Kelly will give him more of a leash if he is pitching well. Can he go at least 6 innings for God’s sake? There is no question the Pirates have their work cut out for them if they are to get a series win.