Pittsburgh Pirates: Bullpen, Defensive Woes Continue In Series Loss vs St. Louis

Season long defensive woes continue

All season long defense has been a major problem for the Pirates. This continued against the Cardinals this week. Poor defense is a major reason why the Pirates currently find themselves five games under .500.

On Monday night, Corey Dickerson made a trio of bad plays in the outfield.

In the 1st inning he missed a liner that should have easily been caught for the final out of the inning. Instead, it was a two-base error and gave the Cardinals and 1-0 lead. The bottom of the 3rd inning saw Dickerson drop a fly ball hit by Paul Goldschimidt resulting in a run-scoring double. He also made a terrible throw, which included a completely unnecessary 360 spin, that allowed a Cardinal base runner to advance from first to second on a routine fly out.

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Josh Bell also had a rough day defensively on Monday. Matt Carpenter singled to start the bottom of the 3rd inning when Bell failed to field a ground ball. Bell easily could have been assessed an error, Carpenter would come around to score when Dickerson dropped Goldschmidt’s ball.

Wednesday afternoon Colin Moran completely misplayed a routine pop up to shallow left field that allowed Dexter Fowler to reach via error instead of making the final out of the inning. Instead of turning, running, getting under the ball, and setting his feet Moran tried to backpedal to get under it. He simply had too much ground to cover to backpedal to the ball. It was little league 101 type of stuff.

Thankfully, this did not more damage other than impacting Chris Archer‘s pitch count.

Tuesday night’s victory was not free of defensive gaffes, either. In the 7th inning the Cardinals had runners on the corners and no one out. For some reason, Fowler did not break for the plate on a ground ball hit to Bell. What should have been an easy double play was not because A) Bell three hopped the ball to second base and B) no one covered first base. Thanks to the pitching of Richard Rodriguez, it did not bite the Bucs.

Entering the season many people feared defense would hold the 2019 Pirates back. Those fears have become a reality this season.

Late inning bullpen woes continue

Entering the season many people, myself included, expected the bullpen to be a strength for the Pirates. Especially the back end of the ‘pen. Through the first 100 games of the season, this could not be any further from the truth.

After the bullpen blew a 7th inning lead on Wednesday, the Pirates have now lost 10 games this season when they’ve led after 6 innings. Last season, they were 66-6 when leading after 6 innings of play. That’s a drastic drop off.

Felipe Vazquez has anchored the bullpen all season long. However, other than Francisco Liriano no other reliever has been consistent. Well, consistently good that is. So, when Liriano struggles as he did on Wednesday the bullpen, and in turn the team, is in a lot of trouble.

The injuries to Keone Kela and Nick Burdi, as well as Kyle Crick‘s control issues/recent collapse have decimated the Pirate bullpen. Richard Rodriguez struggling for the first two months of the season did not help, either. It has not helped that none of the arms promoted from Triple-A have been able to find any sort of consistency.

For much of the season the Pirate bullpen has been a mess. This trend continued in their series loss against the Cardinals.

Should the Pirates get ready to sell?

After the team went 14-7 leading up to the All-Star Break to pull with 2.5 games of both first place in the division and the second NL Wild Card spot, the Pirates appeared to be sure fire buyers. Well, as a week of play can do this time of year, just ask the San Francisco Giants, the Pirates now appear to be sellers.

The team is done in the division. They’re 6.5 games behind the Cubs. They are not making up 6.5 games on the games in just 62 games. On top of the mathematical difficulty, the Cubs are just flat out better than the Pirates are.

Wednesday night, Jon Heyman of MLB Network reported that the Pirates are open to moving players on expiring contracts. Jordan Lyles, Corey Dickerson, and Melky Cabrera were the three players Heyman mentioned. Francisco Liriano should be shopped, too.

Heyman added the Pirates do not appear interested in moving core players controlled past this season such as Felipe Vazquez. This is the right approach to take. The Pirates still have a strong core and should be in a position to contend in 2020 if they get healthy and bolster the rotation and catcher.

Barring a 5 or 6 win home stand, Neal Huntington should be readying to sell. Even if the Bucs go 5-2 or 6-1 on their upcoming home stand, moving players on expiring contracts may still be the team’s best option.