Pittsburgh Pirates Drop 11th Straight Against Dodgers

Even the stars of this young Pittsburgh Pirates team manages to find ways to make errors that are rarely ever seen, while on their way to another loss against the Dodgers, as they have now lost 11 straight against the boys in blue

Tuesday night Pittsburgh Pirates dropped the first game in a three-game set against the Los Angeles Dodgers by a score of 5-3. Before the game began, the Pirates made a few roster moves by activating Phillip Evans and Mitch Keller. In order to make room for these two, they designated Wilmer Difo for assignment and sent Austin Davis back to Triple-A Indianapolis.

With the loss, the Pittsburgh Pirates have now lost 11 straight games against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Pirates have not defeated the Dodgers since June 2018. Additionally, the loss dropped the Pirates to 23-36 on the season.

Yet another bad play strikes the Pittsburgh Pirates

Ke’Bryan Hayes was looking to get the offense going early when he blasted a liner just over the Clemente Wall for a “home run” in the first inning. This play ended up being reviewed and called an out after the replay showed that Hayes missed the first base bag when he was rounding the bases. This meant instead of it being a 1-0 Pirates lead the game was back to 0-0 and the inning was over.

Fiasco in the 5th

JT Brubaker was looking strong on the mound until the 5th inning hit. In this inning he was charged with 3 runs after he let in 2 runs on a single, a double and a triple. Then, the 3rd run scored as an inherited run when Chasen Shreve came in to get the last out of the fifth.

This game marks Brubaker’s fifth loss on the season in his nine decisions. Despite the poor record Brubaker owns a strong 3.75 ERA, 4.25 FIP and 1.18 WHIP this season, to go with a 5.1% walk rate and a 24.6% strikeout rate.

The bullpen had an okay outing

After Shreve and Brubaker pitched, Chris Stratton and Duane Underwood Jr. both pitched two innings of relief. Stratton pitched fairly well except for when he gave up a two-run home run to Chris Taylor in the sixth inning.

Underwood Jr on the other hand though, pitched great as he allowed no hits nor any walks in the eighth and ninth innings.

Late offense, not enough 

After the Hayes mishap, the offense was pretty quiet until the end of the game. In the 8th inning, Adam Frazier was able to keep his hot 2021 season going when he doubled in the first run of the night for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Then, the Pirates were able to get two runs in the 9th off of solo blasts from Bryan Reynolds (his 9th) and Michael Perez (his 4th).

This offense ultimately came too late though as the Pirates fell by a final of 5-3.

What’s Next?

The second game of this three-game series is set to begin at 7:05 Wednesday as Tyler Anderson (3-5 4.67 ERA) makes his eleventh start of the season against Tony Gonsolin, who is making his 2021 debut.