Pittsburgh Pirates Drop Game 1 Of Weekend Series Against Phillies

The Pittsburgh Pirates lost to the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday night

On the season, the Pittsburgh Pirates are now 18-24. This comes after losing to the Philadelphia Phillies by a score of 7-2 on Friday night. Friday night’s loss came in game 1 of a 3 game weekend series between the teams.

In Friday night’s loss, the Pirate offense did a whole lot of nothing. This was a major contributing factor in the Pirate loss. Another big factor was the inability of Pirate pitchers to return Phillies’ pitcher Jeremy Hellickson at the plate.

Friday night’s game got off to a great start for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Josh Harrison singled to start the bottom of the 1st inning and this was followed by a Josh Bell double to make it 1-0 Pirates.

Then with Bell on third base and two outs, Francisco Cervelli grounded out to shortstop. Philadelphia shortstop Freddy Galvis would then proceed to throw the ball past first baseman Tommy Joseph allowing Bell to score. This made it 2-0 Pirates after 1 inning.

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This would remain the score until the top of the 3rd inning. Galvis doubled to start the inning. Then with one out Trevor Williams walked his counterpart, Jeremy Hellickson. Allowing the opposing pitcher to reach base should never happen, especially via the walk.

A Cesar Hernandez single would cut the Pirate lead to 2-1.

In the top of the 6th inning, the Phillies would take a lead that they would not relinquish. Trevor Williams walked Cesar Hernandez to start the inning and then he got snakebitten. Daniel Nava hit a broken bat double that dropped on the infield dirt between David Freese and the third base line.

The ball then would roll into left field. Despite the ball only going about 105 feet, Nava had a double and the Phillies had men on second and third with no outs. After a ground out and a sacrifice fly, the Phillies led 3-2. Williams was then lifted after allowing a 2-out single to Odubel Herrera.

Trevor Williams pitched 5 2/3 innings of Friday night. He allowed 3 run on 4 hits, 2 walks, and zero strikeouts. This was his second straight strong start, minus the lack of strikeouts, after his disaster in Los Angeles.

Josh Lindblom took over for Williams in the 6th and picked off Herrera to end the inning. He would allow a run in the top fo the 7th inning. This came when he allowed a 2-out RBI double to Jeremy Hellickson. However, Hellickson would have to exit the game due to suffering an injury on the swing.

Josh Lindblom went on to pitch 2 1/3 innings for the Pirates. He allowed 1 run on 3 hits and a strikeout.

Tony Watson pitched the top of the 9th inning. He would allow a bloop single to start the inning, an infield hit to Freddy Galvis that should have been ruled an error, and then a 3-run home run to Cameron Rupp. This made it 7-2 Phillies and put the game on ice. Watson would retire the next 3 batters he faced.

After the bottom of the 1st inning, the Pirates would not record a hit again until Josh Bell singled to start the bottom of the 9th. Before the Bell single, the only base runner after Cervelli reached on an error in the 1st inning was Andrew McCutchen drawing a walk in the bottom of the 3rd inning.

Hector Neris would pitch a scoreless 9th inning for the Phillies to seal the fate of the Pirates in their 7-2 loss on Friday night.

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Game 2 of the 3 game series from PNC Park is scheduled for 4:05 PM Saturday afternoon. Ivan Nova is scheduled to start for the Pirates, while the Phillies plan to go with Vince Velasquez. The Pirates will look to even the series at a game a piece with a victory.

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