Pittsburgh Pirates: Luis Oviedo Struggles in First Career Start

Tuesday night the Pittsburgh Pirates suffered a blowout loss in the first game of their three-game series at PNC Park against the Milwaukee Brewers

While trades and trade rumors continue to garner most of the attention from fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates. However, there is still baseball to be played. Tuesday night at PNC Park the Pirates kicked off a three-game series against the NL Central leading Milwaukee Brewers.

Entering the series the Pittsburgh Pirates were 9-8 in their last 17 games played. They are now 9-9 in their last 18 games played after suffering an 9-0 blowout loss against the Brewers to kick off their series. Following the loss the Pirates are now 38-62 on the season.

Luis Oviedo struggles in first MLB start

Originally lefty Tyler Anderson was scheduled to start for the Pittsburgh Pirates on Tuesday night. But with a trade to the Philadelphia Phillies reportedly finalized, or close to it, Anderson was scratched from the start.

With Anderson scratched, Rule 5 addition Luis Oviedo was tabbed for his first MLB start. In the start Oviedo would make history. Unfortunately, it was not good history that Oviedo would make on Tuesday night.

On the night Oviedo allowed 8 runs (6 earned) on 5 hits, 3 walks, he hit a batter and he struck out a pair. These results came in just 1+ innings pitched for Oviedo as he failed to record an out in the 2nd inning.

With this outing Oviedo became the first pitcher in MLB’s modern era to allow at least 8 run while only pitching 1 inning in their first career start. This is not the type of history that any team or player ever wants to make.

Despite possessing plus stuff the 2021 season has not gone well for Oviedo. He has now pitched 19.2 innings in 13 games, posting a 9.61 ERA and a 6.10 FIP. While Oviedo has struck out 21.0% of batters faced, he’s issuing walks at a 15.0% rate and is allowing home runs at a rate of 1.83 HR/9.

Moving forward it will be interesting to see what the Pirates do with Oviedo. With the team out of contention and with a pitching staff set to take multiple blows via trades, odds are, Oviedo will get more opportunities with the Pirates. This offseason, however, Oviedo could be in danger of losing his roster spot.

Cody Ponce impresses in relief

Prior to the start of Tuesday night’s game the Pirates made a pair of roster moves. This included right-handed pitcher Cody Ponce being recalled from Triple-A Indianapolis. Ponce arrived in Pittsburgh unaware how he would be used by the Pirates but he was ready to do whatever the team asked of him, which is exactly what he did.

Pocne was brought into the game in the 4th inning with the Pirates trailing 8-0 and in need of length. Ponce did not just give the Pirates length, he gave the team 5 excellent innings of relief to help save the rest of the bullpen.

In 5 innings of relief Ponce did not allow a run. Ponce limited the Brewers to just 3 hits, he walked a batter and he struck out 5. Following this outing it is easy to envision Ponce getting an opportunity to start for the Pirates in their next turn through the starting rotation.

Pirate offense gets shutout

For the 5th time this season the Pirates were shutout. The team collected just 4 hits, none of which went for extra bases, and they drew just a pair of walks. That is not a recipe for success, folks.

The 4 hits the Pirates collected came between two players. Both Ben Gamel and Jacob Stallings collected a pair of hits in the loss and the walks were drawn by Gregory Polanco and a pinch hit walk by Phillip Evans.

While the Pirates did not have many opportunities to hit with runners in scoring position, they did go 0-for-3 with RISP. From the get go the Pirates were in a massive hole on Tuesday night and a lack of offense was part of that.

What’s next?

As of this writing the Pittsburgh Pirates had not yet announced a starting pitcher for game two on Wednesday night. Righty Adrian Houser (3.88 ERA, 4.62 FIP) is slated to start for the Brewers. First pitch from PNC Park is scheduled for 7:05 PM ET.