Bullpen Collapses As Pittsburgh Pirates Get Blown Out By Braves

The Pittsburgh Pirates and Atlanta Braves met for the first time in the 2019 season on Tuesday night

Following a much needed off day on Monday, the Pittsburgh Pirates kicked off a three-game series at PNC Park on Tuesday night. The Pirates came into the series owning a 4-10 record in their last 14 games. It goes without saying that the Pirates were entering this series looking to start to right the ship.

Leading the way for the Pirates was Steven Brault. Tuesday night was the lefty’s 10th game and 4th start of the season. Brault would struggle during his time on the mound, this combined with errors by the Pirate defense and too many walks from the pitch staff as a whole led to the team suffering their 11th loss in the last 15 games. Following a 12-5 loss, the Pirates have now fallen to a season worst three games under .500 at 28-31.

In the top half of the 1st inning Brault did enough to escape without allowing a run. After issuing a walk and allowing a single, Brault struck out Josh Donaldson for the second out of the inning. On the pitch that K’d the former AL MVP both runners attempted to steal. Elias Diaz made the poor decision to throw to third base instead of eating the ball, the throw went into the outfield, and Ronald Acuna Jr. scored to give the Braves a 1-0 lead on an unearned run.

This lead would not last long.

With two outs in the bottom of the 1st inning Starling Marte started a two-out rally with a base hit to right field. Melky Cabrera followed Marte’s hit with a 2-run home run to left field. Cabrera’s 4th long ball of the season gave the Bucs a 2-1 lead.

Cabrera’s home run was not the end of the scoring for the Pirates in the 1st inning. Elias Diaz singles, Jose Osuna doubled, and Cole Tucker doubled. All of this grew the Pirate lead to 4-1. The Braves then intentionally walked Adam Frazier to get to Brault, who Atlanta starter Max Fried retired to end the inning.

In recent games Tucker has been starting to heat up at the plate. He is now 8 for his last 23 with four doubles and two walks. Tucker’s double was hit with an exit velocity of 95.5 MPH, which builds upon his above league average exit velocity of 89.5 MPH that entered the game with. After hitting a rough patch offensively, it appears that Tucker is starting to pull out of it.

After the Braves cut the Pirate lead to 4-2 in the top of the 2nd inning, Cabrera would strike again in the bottom half of the inning. A two-out RBI single scored Marte after he doubled, and made the score 5-2 Pirates.

Throughout his outing Brault had to dance around rain drops and dealt with base runners. While his defense hurt him in the 1st inning, and plus play by Newman ended the 2nd inning and he also started an inning ending 5-4-3 double play in the 4th.

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Unlike his last start against the Reds when he pitched 5 1/3 scoreless innings, Brault’s control was poor on Tuesday night. He struggled to put the ball where he wanted to throughout the night, often times missed his spots by a wide margin, and he threw just 51 of 93 pitches for strikes. He also hit a batter and uncorked a costly wild pitch in the 2nd inning, which led to an Atlanta run.

In 4 innings pitched Brault allowed 2 runs, just 1 earned, on five hits, three walks, and three strikeouts. Brault now owns a 5.54 ERA and a 5.42 FIP this season. Much like Nick Kingham, there is no reason for Brault to continue to make starts for the Pirates. It’s past time for Mitch Keller and Dario Agrazal to replace those two in the Pirate rotation. But I digress.

Clay Holmes replaced Brault. In the 5th inning he retired the Braves in order. Then in the 6th inning, Austin Riley reached on an error by Newman, although it should have been ruled an infield hit, and Holmes issued a walk. With two men on and no one out, Clint Hurdle lifted Holmes and went to the much maligned Richard Rodriguez.

Rodriguez would rise to the occasion and do what he did better than any other reliever in the National League last season – strand runners. He retired three of the four batters he faced. The lone batter to reach was Matt Joyce‘s run-scoring single on a weakly hit groundball that snuck through the infield shift. This run was one of 3 unearned runs the Braves would score.

Since returning from the minor leagues last week Rodriguez has made six appearances for the Pirates. In five of the six he has not allowed a run. Hopefully, this is a sign of Rodriguez getting back on track. Getting the 2018 Rodriguez back, or anything close to it, would be a huge boost to a beleaguered Pirate bullpen.

In the 7th inning, Hurdle tabbed Kyle Crick as the next man up out of the Pirate ‘pen. Crick recorded a strikeout to start the inning, issued a walk, and then more ugly Pirate defense occurred. Bryan Reynolds failed to catch a routine fly ball to left field, which put two runners on with one out. Riley then launched a 3-run home run off of Crick to give the Braves a 6-5 lead.

Crick recorded another out before issuing a second walk and being removed for Geoff Hartlieb. The uncharacteristically poor outings from Crick brought his NL best 15 1/3 scoreless innings streak to an end. This goes back to a point made in the three takeaways from the series loss against Milwaukee, the Pirates only have three reliable relievers right now. Crick is one of these three pitchers. However, due to how bad the rest of the pitching staff currently is, if any of these three relievers are not perfect it is almost impossible for the Pirates to win.

In the bottom of the 7th inning the Pirates had an opportunity to tie the game. Tucker walked with one out, moved to second base on a passed ball, and got to third on a groundout by Frazier. But Atlanta reliever Anthony Swarzak was able to retire Jacob Stallings to end the inning.

Hartlieb returned to the mound in the 8th inning, and things quickly got ugly.

Dansby Swanson singled, Freddie Freeman doubled, and Donaldson homered. Just like that, it was 9-5 Atlanta and the game was out of reach. Rookie Davis pitched the 9th inning and allowed 3 more runs to complete the 10-run bullpen collapse.

The Braves are a team the Pirates will be seeing a lot of in the next two weeks. 7 of the team’s next 10 games are against the Braves. The Bucs are also chasing the Braves for the second and final National League Wild Card spot. So, the next 6 games will give them a direct opportunity to make up ground on Atlanta. Unfortunately, the Pirates are currently playing some very poor baseball so this opportunity may go to waste.

Despite the loss, it was good to see the Pirate offense continue to chug along. Entering the game the Bucs were averaging more than 6 runs per game in their last 13 contests. Tuesday night’s game also marked the first time since August 2007 that the Pirates have recorded 8+ hits in 11 consecutive games.

With a lack of quality pitching the Pirates continue to be in a bad, bad place. Mix in the defensive miscues that occurred on Tuesday night and that is a recipe for utter disaster. Unfortunately, it is looking more and more likely that injuries to the pitching staff will derail the 2019 season and make it a ‘what if?’ type of season.

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The second game of the series is scheduled for 7:05 on Wednesday night. Joe Musgrove (4/57 ERA, 3.59 FIP) will start for the Pirates and look to bounce back after a miserable month of May. Kevin Gausman (5.56 ERA, 3.67 FIP), who also struggled in the month of May, will make the start for the Braves.

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