Tag: Team loss

Posted on

Pirates Morning Report: Pirates Give Another One Away But This Was A Total Team Effort

Final Score: Pirates 2 Cubs 3 in 10 innings

Why The Pirates Lost: Everyone contributed to this loss. The offense could not get runners in from 3rd with less than 2 outs. The manager made his usual horrible decisions. The bullpen gave away the deciding run. Only the starting pitching namely Jared Jones could hold its head up high. He went six innings giving up one run on 2 hits, walking 1 and striking out 5. He threw 83 pitches. Unfortunately one of the hits was a solo homer by Pete Crow-Armstrong. The Pirates had their chances but could only plate 1 run despite getting 8 hits and 3 walks in regulation.

Key Moments Of The Game: In the bottom of the 5th the Pirates opened the inning with 2 walks, a bunt single, and an infield single to plate 1 run. They had the bases loaded with nobody out and the top of the order up. Jake Magnum and Nick Gonzales both hit very short fly balls to the outfield that could not advance any runners. Bryan Reynolds struck out. Crow-Armstrong hit his homer the very next inning to quickly tie the game. In the bottom of the 7th the Pirates had runners on 1st and 3rd with one out. Gonzales hit a 266 foot fly ball to left. Ian Happ made a great throw to nail Henry Davis at the plate. Yohan Ramirez pitched the top of the 10th. He got 2 outs sandwiched between an infield single putting runners on 1st and 2nd. That’s when Ramirez started to lose control. Don Kelly paid no attention. He fell behind Dansby Swanson 2-0. He threw a fastball right down the middle and Swanson drilled it 105 MPH into center field to score the go ahead run on a bang-bang play at the plate that was not overturned. Ramirez then threw 2 straight balls to Crow-Armstrong that weren’t even close, eventually leading to an intentional walk. This is where Ramirez should have been taken out. Kelly sat on his hands. After all the game was only on the line. Ramirez walked Seiya Suzuki on 4 straight pitches with only one being remotely close to the strike zone, walking in the deciding run of the game.He had thrown 8 out of 9 pitches for balls. He should have never been allowed to that, hence, a 3-2 loss.

Next Game: Tonight Cubs in Pittsburgh. Paul Skenes goes for the Pirates tonight. He has won his last 3 starts and they all have been good but not dominant. The Pirates need to bounce back from that gift wrapped win they gave the Cubs last night. The offense has been held pretty much in check the last 2 games. This can happen to any offense. Hopefully they will snap out of it soon.

Posted on

Pirates Morning Report: White Sox Get Their First Sweep Of The Season Easily.

Final Score: Pirates 2 White Sox 7

Why The Pirates Lost: Andrew Heaney had another bad start. On June 30th, Heaney pitched almost 7 innings of shutout ball against the Cardinals. His one start before that and his last 3 appearances have been horrific. In 4 games, he pitched 13 innings. He has given up 21 runs, all of them earned. He has given up 25 hits, including a whopping 9 home runs. At one time, the Heaney looked like he might be a trade chip. Now, he looks like he should be DFA. Another great pickup, Cherrington. The bullpen had a nice bounce back. They pitched 5 innings of 1-hit ball. It was way too late by then. The Pirate offense was just as bad. They only had 4 hits. They scored 2 runs, but 1 was from defensive indifference in the bottom of the 9th. They just had some awful at-bats led by Joey Bart and Oneil Cruz. Bart struck out on two called strikes and then swung at two pitches out of the strike zone. On his next at-bat, he was thrown 6 pitches, all out of the strike zone. He swung at 3 of them to strike out again. Cruz swung at 4 pitches in a row out of the strike zone. He then took a called 3rd strike to end the game. With the trade deadline coming up, you could call this a lame duck team. I just call them lame. Management again brought up a young player, Peguero, and has not played him for 3 games. He made a token appearance in the first game of the series. How does that help him? It most likely hinders his progress.

Key Moment Of The Game: The first inning, and you knew this game was over. Heaney got lit up for 4 runs. The first 5 batters, except for the one that walked, did not hit a ball under 99 MPH. He gave up 2 home runs. The last one went out at 107 MPH and carried 429 feet. The Pirates never really threatened to make a game of it. They only got 3 runners to scoring position for the game. For the third game in a row, they were blown out. The White Sox got their first 3 game sweep of the season. It is a sad state of affairs.

Next Game: Tonight, Tigers in Pittsburgh. We will see if Paul Skenes is engulfed in this starting pitching slump. The trade deadline can’t come fast enough. This team looks like they did at the start of the season. They have no interest in winning or playing baseball. It looks like we will have to endure another 7 to 10 days of this. Maybe these guys will get the shock of their lives and Cherrington won’t trade anybody. It would serve them right. It is about time Cherrington screwed over somebody besides the fans.

Posted on

Pirates Morning Report: You Knew They Weren’t Going To Win Them All.

Final Score: Pirates 3 Nationals 5

Why The Pirates Loss: Another mediocre pitching performance by a Pirate starter, this time by Mitch Keller, led to this defeat. In 5 and 1/3 innings of “work” he gave up 5 runs on 8 hits, walking 2, striking out 5, while throwing 84 pitches. Of the 8 hits 5 were doubles and another one a home run. Not a lot of cheap hits in the bunch. There was catcher interference that made one of the runs unearned, but all in all another forgettable performance by a Pirates starter. This time the Pirates bats could not overcome the rotation ineffectiveness. In fact, they were pretty silent striking out 13 times and getting only 4 hits. There were only 3 players in the starting lineup that got hits. Lots of collars were worn in this game for the Pirate offense. Their last hit was the home run by Jack Suwinski in the top of the 6th, and they were retired in order 4 times during the game. The bullpen did well again, giving up no runs on just 2 hits and striking out 3 in 2 and 2/3 innings. The offense was pretty punchless the last 3 innings and really never threatened to cut into the Nationals 2 run lead. It looks like 162-0 is now just a pipe dream.

Key Moments Of The Game: It was the ability of the Nationals to bounce right back every time the Pirates did do something on offense. The Pirates got 2 runs in the top of the 2nd and the Nationals came right back lighting up Mitch Keller to score 4 runs in the bottom of the 2nd. The Pirates got within one in the top of the 6th and the Nationals got that run right back in the bottom of the 6th. Each time, it allowed the Nationals to either get momentum or maintain momentum.

Next Game: This afternoon, Nationals in D.C. Martin Perez will make his 2nd start of the season and maybe he can give the Pirates their first quality start of the season. It would be nice to see them take the series today because even though they are headed home they are going to go up against one of the best teams in the American League in the Baltimore Orioles, with the Detroit Tigers to follow. Looks like Jared Jones will be starting the home opener, and he certainly had the most dynamic start so far this season, even though it did not count as a quality start. The other reason that a win today would be nice, is believe or not the Pirates have Barry (I am at) Falter penciled in to start on Saturday. I see no guarantee that the Pirates are going to score 10 runs that day, which is what they will need if he really starts that game. Come on management.