Pittsburgh Pirates: Pirates Drop Fifth Straight

In a game that had some unusual plays, the Pittsburgh Pirates fell to the Chicago Cubs in the third and final game of the series. 

The Pittsburgh Pirates have now lost five straight and nine of their last ten games. The final score of this contest was 5-3. The Pirates record now sits at 18-31, which is the second-worst in the NL and third-worst in all of baseball.

Long Ball Haunts Anderson Again

In the first inning, Kris Bryant hit his fourth home run off of Tyler Anderson in his 17th at-bat against him at the time. Then in the fourth inning, Patrick Wisdom hit his fifth career home run. This brings Anderson’s allowed home run total to go to seven in the last three outings and ten in his ten total outings.

Horrific Defense By Will Craig Becomes Costly

In the second inning with two outs and an 0-2 count Javy Baez hit what should have been a routine 5-3 putout, Will Craig found a way to ruin it. Javy Baez was messing around and ran back towards home plate and this apparently made Will Craig forget how to play baseball.

He chased him all the way to the plate and rather than getting the forceout to end the inning, he threw it to home to try to get the meaningless runner. This throw was late and Javy was able to get back to first safely as no one was coving the bag and ended up on second after a wide throw.

This boneheaded move by Craig ended up costing the Pirates two runs and ran up Tyler Anderson’s pitch count.

Longballs Help To Close The Gap

The Pirates were able to close the gap in this game with the long balls but it ultimately was not enough to overcome the stupidity of Will Craig’s costly mistake. Three home runs were hit by the Buccos today and all of them were solo shots. Bryan Reynolds and Gregory Polanco went back to back in the fourth inning for the fifth home run for both of them this season. Later on, in the seventh inning,m Michael Perez went deep for his third homer this year.

Bullpen Pitches Well

Sam Howard, David Bednar, Kyle Crick, and Richard Rodriguez all pitched well today to combine for four innings of relief. They combined to only allow five hits and got four strikeouts. Only one run scored against this bullpen and that was in the ninth inning when a run was charged to Richard Rodriguez as a run scored on a double play.

What’s Next?

The Pirates start the final series of the homestand as they will face the Rockies in a three-game set before going to Kansas City for a brief two-game road stint. Tomorrow’s matchup will see Jon Gray (4-4 3.43 ERA) face off against struggling Mitch Keller (2-6 7.41 ERA).