Pirates Pitching Drop Double Digit Runs Again In Second Straight Loss

Despite the bats showing up for a third straight day, The Pittsburgh Pirates’ pitching imploded yet again, leaving the Pirates with an 11-5 loss vs the Detroit Tigers.

After a rough 11th inning loss last night vs the Detroit Tigers, the Pirates played the second game of a three game series vs the Tigers this afternoon. While the bullpen imploded yesterday, the starter was the one who fully imploded today. Let’s breakdown today’s game.

Derek Holland

Left handed starter Derek Holland had done fairly well in his first two starts as a Pirate. Entering today, we expected more of the same, 5 solid innings, but Holland got off to a brutal start. 4 of the first five batters Holland faced hit a solo home run off of the lefty. Holland gave up yet another run in the second inning.

After that, Holland seemed to settle down, striking out 5 batters and just one hit in his next three innings, but in the 6th inning, Holland ran into trouble again. Former Pirate prospect JaCoby Jones led the inning off with a longball. Holland then gave up back-to-back doubles. After that, Holland’s day was over.

Phillip Evans leaves game with injury

Utility man Phillip Evans has been one of the few extremely bright spots for the Pirates this year. He entered the day batting .378/.452/.514 with a 175 OPS+ through his first 42 plate appearances of the season. Not only has he been a valuable batter, but he’s been playing all over the diamond. Today, he started at first base and was part of a painful out I brought up earlier forced Evans to leave the game.

Evans had started at first base today. On a pop up in foul territory, Evans and Gregory Polanco collided with Evans, leaving him what looked to be out cold on the ground for a few seconds. Evans was taken out of the game on a stretcher and we are awaiting further information on how long he will be out. Here at Rum Bunter, we love to run the Phillip Evans hype train so we are all hoping he can recover quickly.

Nick Mears makes his debut

In more positive news, Pirates’ relief prospect Nick Mears made his debut today. Mears ranks as the team’s 14th best prospect, and is someone we have covered here before. Mears relieved Holland, and went to toss one inning, allowing one earned run, walked three batters while striking out two.

Though it wasn’t the prettiest of debuts for Mears, you have to cut him some slack given the fact he was the pitcher in when Polanco and Evans crashed. Not only did that mean there was a long delay between pitches, but it also probably shook up the 23-year-old.

The Offense

At the very least, the Pirates have been scoring a decent amount of runs as of recently. Today, the team scored 5 runs. Kevin Newman really looks like he’s getting into the swing of things, as he went 4-5 today with a double.

Newman wasn’t the only one with multiple hits today as Jarrod Dyson also had two hits himself. Catcher Jacob Stallings was joining in on the fun too adding two singles as well. Moran, who subbed for Evans after the collison, had one hit in the lone plate appearance he had today.

In the last three days, the Pirates have scored 24 total runs. That’s the most by any other team in baseball so far.

What’s Next?

The Pirates will faced off vs the Tigers again tomorrow at 1:35 PM. Joe Musgrove will try and bounce back from a rough outing of his own against Spencer Turnbull