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Pittsburgh Pirates: Grading the Series Loss in Kansas City
Another series is in the books for the Pittsburgh Pirates… as is another series loss for the Pirates. Now, let’s hand out some grades for the Pirates after being swept in Kansas City.
The bad news is that the 2020 season is almost over for the Pittsburgh Pirates. To some, that may also be good news! This is due to how poorly the Pirates have played in 2020.
After a 4-17 start, the Pittsburgh Pirates were sunk before they ever got going. While they have played better since then going 10-13 in their last 23 games, the team still owns a poor 14-30 record on the season. A 4-17 start would sink most teams in a full 162 game season, let alone in a shortened 60 game sprint.
Over the weekend the Pittsburgh Pirates played a three-game series at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City against the Royals. After being swept over the weekend in Kansas City, the Pirates are now a woeful 1-10-2 in series played this season.
As we have, some times painfully, done all season, we will now hand out grades from the team’s series loss in Kansas City. We will start by grading how Pirate starting pitchers performed over the weekend.
Pirate Starting Pitchers
Friday night Steven Brault toed the rubber for the Pittsburgh Pirates to kick off the series. Brault lasted just 4 innings and threw 97 pitches in these 4 innings of work. In addition to an ungodly high pitch count for 4 innings, Brault also allowed 3 runs on five hits, three walks, a home run, and a wild pitch.
While allowing 3 runs does not constitute a poor start for a starting pitcher, only going 4 innings does. Brault continued to battle control issues in the start, which is what led to a spike in pitch count and a short outing.
The second game of the series saw Trevor Williams take the mound for the Pirates. In this start, the collapse of Williams continued. In 5 innings of work, Williams allowed 6 runs on 10 hits, three walks, and he allowed two home runs. Williams now owns a 6.35 ERA this season and is quickly becoming a non-tender candidate this off-season.
Sunday afternoon Chad Kuhl started for the Pirates and turned in possibly the worst start of his MLB career. In 2.1 innings pitched, Kuhl allowed 9 runs on four hits, a home run, he walked six, and struck out five. Not good!
The Verdict
The 2020 season has not been a good one for Pirate starting pitchers. This continued over the weekend in Kansas City. In fact, the starting pitching performance over the weekend was a complete disaster
Grade: F
The Pirate Bullpen
Despite suffering a loss, the bullpen gave the Pittsburgh Pirates a chance to come back on Friday night. Dovydas Neverauskas, Chris Stratton, Nik Turley, and Geoff Hartlieb combined to pitched 5 innings in relief of Brault. Those four allowed just 1 run on two hits, two walks and four strikeouts.
Saturday night, for the most part, things went well for the bullpen again.
Austin Davis was first up and pitched a 1-2-3 inning in his debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Sam Howard retired the lone batter he faced, and Derek Holland pitched a scoreless 8th inning. However, Kyle Crick allowed two hits, walked a pair, was charged with a run, and failed to finish his inning of work.
Sunday afternoon the bullpen had a tall task in front them, and, for the most part, pitched well. Nick Tropeano pitched 2.2 innings, he allowed a run and struck out six. Neverauskas allowed a run in 2 innings of work, Richard Rodriguez struck out two of the three batters he faced and Davis retired the only batter he faced.
The Verdict
Against the Royals the Pirate bullpen was asked to log a lot of innings. In 12.2 innings of work, Pirate relievers allowed 4 runs. Any time you ask your bullpen to cover 12.2 innings in a series, you’ll settle for allowing just 4 runs.
Grade: B
Grading Bucco Bats
The first two games of the series the Pittsburgh Pirates did ok offensively. Friday night the team scored 3 runs while collecting seven hits, two of them for extra bases. This included a 2-run home run by Josh Bell.
Saturday night, the Pirates scored 4 runs. This time, the team collected eight hits and clubbed three home runs. They were solo home runs by Bell, Bryan Reynolds and Adam Frazier. Erik Gonzalez added a double.
Sunday afternoon, however, the offense vanished. In the 11-0 blowout loss, the Pittsburgh Pirates collected just five hits. Of their fives hits, four were singles. In the loss, the team only had two runners reach scoring position.
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The Verdict
Sunday afternoon the offense was awful. Flat out awful. While the team did score a combined 7 runs in the first two games of the series, they also went 2-for-14 with runners in scoring position and left 11 runners on base. When you lose a pair of close games, failures to come through in the cluth with RISP can be a killer. That combined with a woeful performance on Sunday gives the offense a poor overall grade for the weekend.
Grade: C