Pittsburgh Pirates Drop Rubber Match in San Diego

Wednesday night in San Diego the Pittsburgh Pirates dropped the rubber match of their three-game series against the Padres

The Pittsburgh Pirates entered Wednesday night’s rubber match at Petco Park searching for a series victory over the San Diego Padres. Despite another strong start from JT Brubaker, the Pirates were unable to win the series.

The Padres defeated the Pirates 4-2 on Wednesday night. With the loss, the Pittsburgh Pirates are now 13-17 on the season. This includes the Pirates now owning a 5-4-2 record in series played this season.

In Wednesday night’s loss right-handed pitcher Duane Underwood Jr. took his first loss of the young season in this one out of the bullpen. However, as we will get into, taking the loss was far from Underwood Jr.’s fault.

Hunter Owens makes MLB debut

Hunter Owens made his big league debut as he was given the start in right field. Owens went 0-2 with a hit by pitch. The HBP ultimately led to him being removed from the game as it was on his fingers and the Pirates will most likely want to get that X-Rayed.

Error-ik Gonzalez

Defense was definitely not a bright spot for the Pittsburgh Pirates tonight, as they committed four errors in a game for the first time since June of 2019. Erik Gonzalez had a huge role in this, since he was the first Pirate third baseman since Bobby Bonilla in 1989 to have three errors in a game. The last of his three was the most detrimental to the team, as it led to the Padres notching two runs in the sixth inning to take a 4-2 lead.

Pitching managed to strand runners

The Padres managed to score four runs today, but the damage could have been a lot worse as they left 10 men aboard the bases throughout this game. One of these key moments was the the bottom of the third when JT Brubaker got Wil Myers to ground out to strand the bases loaded.

Brubaker finished the game by allowing 2 runs on 6 hits, a home run, 3 walks and 7 strikeouts in 5 innings of work. The 27-year-old righty is continuing to make his push for being the ace of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Offensive struggles continue for the Pittsburgh Pirates

Bryan Reynolds hits a solo shot off of Yu Darvish to cut the lead to 2-1 Padres lead. Later in the inning Ka’ai Tom hit a sac fly to tie the game at 2. Quietly, Tom has put together some strong at-bats with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He also drew a walk in the game, giving him a walk rate over 25% as a Pirate.

Jake Cronenworth singled off of Underwood Jr. to score to the ultimate final score of 4-2 Padres. Cronenworth’s cause was aided by an Gonzalez error earlier in the inning. This was the third error of the night for Gonzalez. Without the error, Underwood Jr. may have posted a zero in the inning.

What’s next

The Pittsburgh Pirates have an off day tomorrow as the travel back east to start a three-game set against the Cubs in what will be a ten day straight set of games before the next off day. The projected matchup for Friday is Trevor Cahill (7.40 ERA) against Zach Davies (8.22 ERA). So, there could be plenty of runs scored on Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field.