Errors Burn Pittsburgh Pirates in Game 1 of Doubleheader in Detroit

One bad inning sunk the Pittsburgh Pirates in game one of their doubleheader in Detroit on Wednesday

After being rained out on Tuesday night the Pittsburgh Pirates and Detroit Tigers found themselves preparing for a doubleheader on Wednesday. Marking the first doubleheader in the next four days for the Pirates, the Bucs were burnt by a poor defensive inning in a 3-2 loss.

Following the loss the Pittsburgh Pirates fell to 9-14 on the season. The Pirates will look to bounce back in game two of the day’s doubleheader. Hopefully, that will be a more mistake free performance from the Pirates.

Strong Pirate pitching

Dillon Peters started as the team’s opener and turned in another strong performance. In 3.1 innings pitched Peters allowed a hit, walked a batter, and struck out 4 while keeping the Tigers off the board. Peters has now allowed just 2 hits, to go with 6 walks and 13 strikeouts in 16.2 scoreless innings pitched this season.

Following Peters was righty Bryse Wilson. For the second time in as many outings when entering after Peters served as the opener, Wilson pitched well. Wilson allowed just 2 hits, walked a batter and struck out 6 in 3.2 innings pitched. However, Wilson was charged with 3 unearned runs that were far from his fault.

Wil Crowe then fired a 1-2-3 8th inning for the Pittsburgh Pirates, lowering his ERA on the season to 1.08.

Poor offensive game

The Pittsburgh Pirates offense was limited to just 5 hits in the loss. Pirate batters walked just twice, while striking out 9 times. This is never a recipe for success for a team’s offense in a baseball game.

Pittsburgh struck for their 2 runs in the 5th inning. Following Cole Tucker and Andrew Knapp singles, Ben Gamel tripled. Gamel’s triple scored both Tucker and Knapp to give the Pirates a 2-0 lead.

Unfortunately, the Pirates could not capitalize further. Bryan Reynolds struck out for the second out of the inning when a fly ball would have made the score 3-0. Ke’Bryan Hayes then followed with a strikeout of his own to end the inning.

Errors loom large

After the Pirates grabbed a 2-0 lead in the top of the 5th inning, their lead would quickly evaporate. A big reason for this occurring was due to errors burning the team in the bottom half of the inning.

Jeimer Candelario doubled to start the bottom of the 5th inning. Wilson then induced a ground ball to the left side of the infield that it appeared would keep Candelario at second base. However, a Cole Tucker error allowed Willi Castro to reach base.

With runners on the corners and no one out Wilson got a huge strikeouts. After issuing a walk, Robbie Grossman hit a sacrifice fly. With the Pirates leading 2-1 Wilson got a ground ball that it appeared would clean up the inning. Instead, a rare defensive miscue by Hayes would give the Tigers the lead. The error by Hayes allowed Castro and Akil Baddoo to score, giving the Tigers a 3-2 lead.

In a game where the offense is struggling defensive miscues like this can prove to be costly. That was the case for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of Wednesday’s doubleheader. Without these two errors, or even without one of the two, the Pirates likely would have won the game.

In the second game of the doubleheader José Quintana (3.32 ERA, 3.92 FIP) will start for the Pirates. For the Detroit Tigers righty Alex Faedo will make his MLB debut.