Pittsburgh Pirates Drop Second in a Row in Kansas City

For the second time in as many nights the Pittsburgh Pirates were defeated by the Royals in Kansas City

Saturday night, we saw the Pittsburgh Pirates (14-28) face off against the Kansas City Royals (18-28) in the second of three games. The struggling Trevor Williams toed the rubber against the young pitcher Carlos Hernandez.

Friday night, the Pittsburgh Pirates suffered a close 4-3 loss and are looking to force a rubber match tomorrow afternoon. This comes after losing 7-4 on Sarturday night.

Trevor Williams

Let’s start with Williams. He started off the first inning giving up a leadoff home run to Whit Merrifield. Other than that home run, Williams looked good that inning keeping his pitch count down and starting off with a strike in most at-bats. Williams would give up another homer in the 3rd inning to streaking Adalberto Mondesi, tying the game at 3-3 at the time.

As we all know, we wonder when/if the disaster inning would be there for Williams tonight, and the answer is yes. It came in the 5th inning where he pitched 38 pitches, four hits, two walks and an additional 3 runs. The most unluckiest thing for Williams tonight was the weak contact resulting in hits. Other than the two homers, the rest weren’t hit all that hard. His final line read 5 innings pitched, 6 runs allowed on nine hits, three walks, three home runs, and four strikeouts all on 101 pitches.

One thing I will say for Williams is that he improved his first pitch strike consistency and his count leverage situations. Throughout the night, he managed 16 first-pitch strikes and 11 high leverage situations with either a 1-2 count or 0-2. The line was bad, but he did improve slightly.

The Bullpen

We saw Austin Davis make his Pittsburgh Pirates debut in the 6th inning, and he looked rather impressive. He managed to go 1 full inning striking out one and, most importantly, giving up zero hits in the hit column.

The next Pirate to come in was the very polarizing figure, Kyle Crick. He had bad outing for the most part. He managed two quick outs but then gave up two hits, one walk to load the bases. He then walked in the seventh run of the game, and his night was ended just like that. His arm looks dead, and I wouldn’t be shocked if he ends up on the injured list again.

Sam Howard then comes on to try and finish this 7th inning. He only needed three pitches to get out of the bases-loaded jam. Howard has been a very pleasant surprise this year. Not only is he valuable because of his handedness, but he seems to shut innings down.

To come on in the 8th was another lefty in Derek Holland. He pitched a rather clean inning. Other than the one-out double, Holland struck out two in a scoreless inning pitched.

Hitting That Mattered

The Pirates managed a good amount of hits tonight in fact; they managed eight in total. The most notable hitters were Josh Bell, Adam Frazier, and Bryan Reynolds. Bell Managed to go 2-4 with a home run in the second, making it a 1-1 game at the time. After coming off of a 12 game hitting streak Frazier, came back to go 2-4 with a homer and two RBIs. Reynolds, who was hitting down in the 7th hole, managed to hit a homer as well but couldn’t manage much after that. He finished 1-3 tonight.

Final Thoughts

• The Pirates lost this game on a rainy night, 7-4.
• Trevor Williams looked OK for the first four innings.
• The Bullpen looked good except for DEAD ARM CRICK.