Tag: You call this managing

Final Score: Pirates 5 Marlins 6

Why The Pirates Lost: This all boiled down to the bottom of the 9th inning. For the second day in a row Yoshi Tsutsugo got a big hit, which this time tied the game at 4-4 in the bottom of the ninth. Tsutsugo was on second base with one out, representing the winning run. Scheduled to bat was Jason Delay, who had already had one hit, and has been on a hot streak. Then Derek (Brain Dead) Shelton, decided to pinch hit for him with Diego Castillo. Castillo against right hand pitching has a slash line of 157/208/217. Delay has a slash line at the moment of 333/385/500. Granted, it is a small sample size, but it is what he is doing right now. He is hitting better against right hand pitching than left hand pitching. We needed a hit to win the game and possibly the outcome would have been the same, but why would you send up Castillo who absolutely stinks against right hand pitching. Needless to say, he struck out, followed by a Newman strike out to send the game into extra innings, where the Pirates lost. The Pirates struck out 18 times yesterday, showing little interest in making contact with the ball. Another brain dead move was taking Keller out after 6 innings even though he had only thrown 74 pitches. The bullpen got through one inning but then imploded to lose the game. Keller may well have able to pitch all the way to the 8th. He gave up a home run and the other 2 runs scored on a hit batsman, 2 bunts and a soft line drive single to left. He was still looking strong after 6 innings. This was a good game that the Pirates should have won, plain and simple. This management team has no interest in winning or making moves that are conducive to winning for the year 2022.

Key moment of The Game: See above.

Next Game: Tonight, Cubs in Chicago. Even though the Pirates managed 5 runs yesterday they only had 6 hits, along with 4 walks. The bats are still cold, but they scored 5 runs which makes this loss tough to take. Who knows maybe Tsutsugo will get hot.