Pittsburgh Pirates Fail To Sweep The Angels

The Pittsburgh Pirates came up short of sweeping the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim on Wednesday night

The West Coast has been good to the Pittsburgh Pirates this week. Following victories over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim on Monday and Tuesday night, the Pirates earned their first series victory in over a month. Unfortunately, the team could not complete the sweep.

More poor defense and another bullpen hiccup led to the Pirates losing 7-4 on Wednesday night. With the loss, the team is now 6-25 since the All-Star Break and 50-70 overall this season.

Early on, things looked good for the Pirates. Angels starting pitcher Dillon Peters got some help from his defense in the 1st inning, but still helped to gift wrap a pair of Pirate runs.

Peters walked Kevin Newman to start the game before hitting both Bryan Reynolds and Starling Marte with a pitcher. With the bases loaded and no one out Josh Bell stepped to the plate. The Pirate slugger hit a 108.8 MPH missile, but shortstop Wilfredo Tovar made a great pick to turn a 6-4-3 double plat. Following Bell’s double play, which scored Newman, Melky Cabrera singled home Reynolds to give the Pirates a 2-0 lead.

Chris Archer started for the Pirates and was in search of his third consecutive start.

Archer posted zeroes in his first 3 innings of work and he appeared to be on his way to another strong start. However, in the 4th inning things went awry.

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Leading off the bottom of the 4th inning he walked Mike Trout. With two outs, Trout stole second base and scored on a base hit by the king Pirate killer Albert Pujols. David Fletcher then doubled home Pujols to tie the game at 2.

After the Fletcher double, Luis Rengifo sliced a ball to left field that dropped in front of Reynolds to score Fletcher. Reynolds charged the ball as if he was preparing to make a throw to the plate – even though there was not going to be a play – which led to the ball getting past him and rolling to the warning track. The error by Reynolds allowed Rengifo to come all the way around to score. Archer would record his 8th strikeout of the night to end the inning, but by then the Angels had taken a 4-2 lead.

Outside of the 35 pitch 5th inning that was not completely his making, Archer turned in another strong start on Wednesday. In 5 innings of work he allowed 4 runs – 3 earned – on five hits, two walks, and 10 strikeouts. For a third consecutive start he did not allow a home run.

In his last three starts Archer has allowed just six earned runs in 17 innings of work. Archer has walked just four batters and struck out 25 in these 17 innings of work. This is also the first time since joining the Pirates he has gone three consecutive starts without allowing a home run.

Keone Kela returned from his suspension in the 6th inning. Kela retired the Angels in order and picked up a strikeout along away.

In the top of the 7th inning the Pirates looked prime for a big inning. Elias Diaz walked to start the inning and Adam Frazier reached on an error. With runners on the corners and no one out, Erik Gonzalez hit into a 6-4-3 double play. This double play scored a run to cut the Angel lead to 4-3, but also killed the Pirate rally.

After Kyle Crick pitched a scoreless 7th inning, the wheels fell off for the Pirates in the 8th.

For some reason Clint Hurdle continues to go to Geoff Hartlieb in games where the Pirates trail by a run instead of a reliever that may keep the deficit at 1 run. As a double whammy, Gonzalez would continue to prove he does not belong on a MLB roster in the inning.

After Hartlieb allowed a lead off single to Shoei Ohtani, Kole Calhoun popped a ball up to shallow left field. Gonzalez completely missed the ball, putting runners on first and second with no one out. After a wild pitch by Hartlieb moved the runners up, the Pirates brought the infield in.

However, Hurdle had the infield come in too far with their being no outs. This led to Pujols shooting a ball past Newman for a 2-run single to make the score 6-3 Angels. With no one out, the Angels were unlikely to try and score on a ground ball so the infield defense had more room to work with but Hurdle and his staff had other ideas. When the dust settled from the bottom of the 8th inning, Hartlieb had allowed 3 runs and the Pirates were trailing 7-3.

Facing Hansel Robles the Pirates would go down swinging in the 9th inning.

Cabrera singled to start the inning and came around to score on a one-out single by Diaz. Diaz would move up to second base on a wild pitch, but Robles retired the next two batters he faced to close out the 7-4 Angels victory.

After a day off on Thursday, the Pirates return to PNC Park to start a three-game series against the Chicago Cubs. This series will included the Little League Classic in Williamsport on Sunday. Friday night’s first pitch is scheduled for 7:05. Joe Musgrove (4.71 ERA, 4.17 FIP) will start for the Pirates. As of this writing, the Cubs starting pitcher was listed as TBD.