Pittsburgh Pirates: Missed Opportunities Lead to Series Loss in Cincinnati

The Pittsburgh Pirates kicked off their 2023 season by dropping two of three in Cincinnati against the Reds

The 2023 Major League Baseball season is underway. For the Pittsburgh Pirates, they kicked the season off with a three-game trip to Great American Ballpark to play their division rival Cincinnati Reds.

Despite winning the first game of the series, the Pirates failed to capture a series victory to kick off their 2023 campaign. With this series loss the Pirates will start their 2023 season 1-2 overall, and are 0-1 in series played.

Throughout the 2023 season we will breakdown and recap each series that the Pittsburgh Pirates play. Today we will do that for their season opening series in Cincinnati. What went well? What didn't? What stood out? Let's get into that and more.

Issues with the offense

Any time you play a three-game series and score just 8 runs the odds of winning the series are pretty low. At a great hitter's park such as Great American Ballpark, which is likely the best hitter's park in baseball, those odds are even lower.

The Pirate offense had plenty of issues in this series, but the main two were a lack of home runs and wasted opportunities. Great American Ballpark is a place the ball flies out of. However, the only two home runs hit by the Pirates were the series were solo shots by Oneil Cruz in game one and Bryan Reynolds in game three. Meanwhile, the Reds hit six home runs in the series.

When the opposing team out homers you 6-2 in a series the odds of series victory are not very high. At a hitter's ballpark where the long ball is a necessity those odds are even lower. This was an issue for the Pirate offense in the series.

Wasted opportunities were also a major issue. In the 1st inning of their 6-2 loss in game two they had the bases loaded with two outs and Cincy starter Nick Lodolo on the ropes. Rodolfo Castro stepped to the plate and had a very poor at-bat that ended in a strikeout to end the inning with the Pirates only leading 1-0.

Trailing 3-1 in the 8th inning of game three on Sunday the Pirates had two men on base with zero outs and their 2-3-4 hitters due up. Given a golden opportunity to potentially tie the game or maybe even take the lead, the Pirates failed to even get a run across.

Last seaosn the Pirate offense was hsitorically bad with runners in scoring position. While it's only one series, thus far those problems have carried over to this season.

Even though they won game one, the Pirate offense was just 2-for-9 with RISP while leaving nine men on base. This effort was followed with a 3-for-7 with RISP while leaving seven men on base. They were then 0-for-8 with RISP on Sunday while leaving six runners on base. That's 5-for-24 with RISP in the series and 22 runners left on base. This is something that must improve, and hitting more home runs, which this lineup should do as the season goes on, would be a big step toward helping with solving that problem.

Starting pitching was not good enough

While the Pirate starting pitching was not terrible, it was not good enough. Mitch Keller started on Opening Day and was one pitch away from turning in a good start, but he allowed a 2-run triple on an 0-2 pitch with two outs in the 5th inning.

This led to Keller allowing 4 runs in 4.2 innings pitched. Although, Keller should get recognition for what he did in the 1st inning. The Reds loaded the bases with no one out via a walk, a weakly hit gorund ball seeing eye single, and borken bat bloop to left field. However, a double play ball and a strikeout cleaned things up allowing Keller to get out of the inning allowing just 1 run.

Saturday afternoon saw the best starting pitching performance of the weekend for the Pirates. Veteran lefty Rich Hill pitched 5 innings, allowing 3 runs. Had it been later in the season Hill likely would have gotten a 6th inning.

Hill allowed just three hits, but two of the three hits were home runs. This does come with a bit of a grain of salt though, as Jonathan India's home run that led off the bottom of the 1st inning would have been a routine fly out at any other MLB ballpark. Had that ball ended in a fly ball out the 3-run 1st inning the Reds had against Hill may have gone very differently. Following the 1st inning, Hill allowed jsut one hit while striking out four and walking one in 4 scoreless innings pitched.

Sunday afternoon Vince Velasquez made his Pirate debut. The veteran allowed a pair of solo home runs, as part of surrendering 3 runs on five hits, a walk, and three strikeouts in 4.2 innings pitched. Again, not terrible but also not nearly good enough.

Moving forward the Pirates need to get more length out of their starting pitchers, but that should be expected as the season goes on. This is especially important with how poor the Pirate bullpen could be this season. While the bullpen pitched well outside of one poor inning by Chase De Jong, there are still plenty of question makrs around the 'pen. The more innings you get out of the starting rotation the less these potential bullpen issues can arise.