Final Score: Pirates 2 Orioles 5
Why The Pirates Lost: The two strongest parts of the team thus far fell flat on their face in the home opener. The offense for the 2nd time in 3 games could not do much. Only 3 of the 9 starters were able to get hits. Oneil Cruz had a big game going 3 for 4 with a home run. The Pirates scored their other run on a solo home run by Jared Triolo. The rest of the offense had a really bad day as Henry Davis struck out 3 times, with McCutchen, Tellez and Suwinski striking out twice each. It’s time to give Davis a rest. The bullpen chose to have its worse game of the year at the home opener. In 3 innings the bullpen gave up 3 runs on 6 hits. It was a shame because it wasted the second quality start in row, this time by Jared Jones. In 6 innings, he gave up two long balls, accounting for 2 runs on 6 hits, striking out 7, while issuing no walks. It was a very solid performance but with no offense and an ineffective bullpen Jones went down to his first loss of the year. The Pirates got a look at what a truly great team can do. Hopefully they took a lot of notes. You can’t play the Marlins all the time.
Key Moments Of The Game: They came in the bottom of the first and the bottom of the third. In the first the Pirates had 1st and 2nd with one out and in the 3rd, it was 1st and 3rd with one out. The Orioles had botched a tag play in the 3rd when Cruz should have not run from 2nd to 3rd on a roller along the third base line. The Oriole 3rd basement dropped the ball on the tag play and Cruz was safe at third. The Pirates failed to get any type of big hit in either inning. The culprits both times were Suwinski and McCutchen. In the 1st Suwinski struck out and McCutchen did hit the ball fairly hard but at the right fielder to end the first inning. In the 3rd when only a sacrifice fly was needed Suwinski popped out to 1st and McCutchen popped out to third. The Pirates really did not threaten the rest of the game. After the Triolo homer to lead off the 7th, the Pirates made 9 straight outs, including 6 strike outs. After the third inning the Pirates only had one base runner. Pittsburgh meet the best team in the American League.
Next Game: This afternoon, Orioles in Pittsburgh. Well, Barry Falter is starting today. This is so upsetting to me that I don’t even want to make fun of his last name. You have to wonder what management is thinking. This guy was not all that good last year, did not have a great spring training and in his first start got racked for 6 runs in 4 innings giving up 2 home runs. This against the Marlins to boot. There are plenty of other options on this team, that this guy should not be starting. It is just like giving away game 2 to the Orioles. After writing all of that, Falter will probably go out and throw a 1 hitter for 7 innings. That would be so nice if he did, but I will be shocked if that happens. The Pirates will have to score at least 8 runs to win this game. I would be absolutely thrilled to be wrong. We will know in less than 12 hours.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 