Tag: The slaughter continues

Final Score: Pirates 0 Rays 7

Why The Pirates Lost: You can’t win if you don’t score. Another bizarre starting lineup. No McCutchen, no Rodriguez. Jack Suwinski leading off. The Red Sox reject playing 1st base again. He played 119 games for the Boston Red Sox and none of them at 1st base. Makes perfect sense to play him at first base his first two games with the Pirates. Moving Tommy Pham and his .095 batting average right into the heart of the lineup, batting 5th. No wonder Joey Bart did not see any good pitches to hit. The Pirates had 9 singles in the game. The Pirates have never had more than 2 hits in an inning after 57 innings of play. The Yankees started a game with 3 home runs. They struck out 15 times. They drew no walks for the 2nd straight game. The Rays pitchers are just throwing the ball over the plate. They did manage to hit 15 balls over 90 MPH. Thomas Harrington made his major league debut last night. Let’s hope his performance was due to first game jitters. It was not pretty. He threw 90 pitches in 4 innings. He gave up 6 runs on 7 hits. Noted for his control of all his pitches, he walked 4, striking out 2. The Rays only struck out 4 times for the game. They walked 6 times while collecting 10 hits. They had 3 extra-base hits, including a home run. The Pirate bullpen proved when the game is not on the line, they do okay. In 4 innings of work, they gave up 1 run on 3 hits. Unfortunately for the Pirates, the Rays do not hand out gift runs.

The Key Moment Of The Game: For the second straight game, it was when Shelton handed in the lineup card. Even one of the umpires reportedly said, “Are you sure about this?” The Rays took over the game in the bottom of the 1st, and it was over before it started. The Pirates’ record fell to 1-5. Even with Skenes pitching, all you can hope for today is that the game will go into extra innings scoreless. Losing 9 of their first 10 games still looms as a distinct possibility.

Next Game: This afternoon, Rays in Tampa. Paul Skenes goes today for the Pirates. What goofy lineup are the Pirates going to come up with today? Maybe they will put Oneil Cruz back at shortstop and move Ke’Bryan Hayes to 1st. In the opening game of the series, Endy Rodriguez got his first hit of the season. He hit the ball hard in his other 2 at-bats. He scored the only run of the game. His reward? You’re not playing today, son. What kind of thinking is this? That is the only good thing about this start. Shelton may be gone sooner rather than later. I hope the players at least make him happy today and have a competitive loss.