In rather frustrating fashion, the Pirates dropped their series finale against the Tampa Bay Rays by a final score of 3-1.
After being blown out 10-3 in the series opener, the Pirates eked out a 4-3 win to set up a series clinching game to wrap up their City Connect weekend.
However, with the series on the line, Derek Shelton put out the classic “give up” lineup on Sunday afternoon.
Five players in this starting lineup currently have an OPS of under .600. Three players have a batting average under .200, and only five of them have one higher than .209.
When the games really start to matter in this time of year, this is not an acceptable lineup to put on the field.
I’m not nearly as much anti-Derek Shelton as others, but lineups like these make it very hard to defend or even understand the thought process behind an idea like this.
As one would have predicted, the team struggled mightily at the plate, even as Paul Skenes gave the Pirates another gem on the mound.
Skenes went 7.0 innings for the Bucs, allowing 6 hits but limiting opponents to just 1 run overall. After the first batter of the game, no runs were scored against Skenes, who struck out 8 and clocked 102 miles per hour on his final pitch of the game.
However, the Pirate offense could never find a way to give Skenes any adequate run suppot.
This depleted Pirates offense only managed 3 hits, and none came after the fourth inning when Bryan Reynolds homered to improve upon this incredible June he is having.
A rare bad game by Colin Holderman saw him surrender 2 earned runs in the eighth inning and turn a 1-1 tie into a 3-1 deficit. That game doubled Holderman’s ERA, which is more of a statement on just how good he has been this season. But when your ERA is sitting at 0.68, a slip up is bound to happen eventually.
That ended up being a death punch for the Pirates in this game and in this series, and a short-lived rally in the bottom of the eighth was followed up by a three up, three down ninth inning to end the game.
Shelton did try to infuse some of the team’s better bats in the eighth inning; he had Andrew McCutchen pinch hit for Yasmani Grandal and Nick Gonzales for Michael A. Taylor. But it was too little, too late, and even after a successful challenge overturned a double play and kept the inning alive, it ended with no runs for Pittsburgh.
With the loss, the Pirates now fall to 37-40. A win today would have put the Pirates just a sole game under .500 with a divisional matchup in Cincinnati looming. Now, the road back to a winning record gets a lot tougher for the Pirates, who are still trying to keep pace for as long as they can in a wild card race.
Games like these are always incredibly frustrating, but it is particularly frustrating in this case, because this was a very winnable game. Any game that Skenes pitches give you a great chance to win, and while Tampa Bay does have some good arms, they are not a top tier pitching team.
Listen, the Pirates are not World Series contenders this season. But they can be better than their record says they are. They have handed games away from the very first pitch far too often this season, and sooner or later, they are going to really start haunting the Pirates.
Losses that are your own fault are always the most frustrating ones.
(Featured photo from AP)
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