CHICAGO — Some Pirates losses can be more painful than others.
Start with the game-losing events: The Pirates carried a two-run lead into the ninth inning. Right-hander Chris Stratton was on the mound for his second inning in a row. He allowed one run on a two-out RBI single to Alfonso Rivas to cut the lead to one.
With runners on the corners, he gave up a line drive to right field, where Ben Gamel dove and nearly made a game-ending play but couldn’t come up with it. It was the second catch in the last three games at Wrigley that probably should have been made to save the game, but ultimately found the ground.
The next batter, Frank Schwindel, bounced a ball into the hole between shortstop and third base. Shortstop Kevin Newman scooped it, made a jump throw to first baseman Colin Moran, but pulled Moran off the bag. He tried to tag Schwindel, but the Cubs first baseman slid and was called safe.
Upon review, if Moran did make a tag, it was well before Schwindel touched first. The problem is that it’s hard to see for certain whether Moran’s glove touched Schwindel at all. The umpires apparently couldn’t get a good enough angle to prove that Moran actually tagged him. They let the call stand, and the Pirates had to eat a 7-6 loss.
“I've only seen what was on the board,” manager Derek Shelton said after the game. “I mean, I would trust what Colin says, so I'll ask Colin and see where we're at there. But from our angle, it looked like he tagged him, but that's not how it went.”
If that wasn’t a gutting enough loss, the Pirates may have also sustained long-term damage. Right-hander JT Brubaker, who returned from a 10-day stint on the injured list to start Saturday’s game, looked great through three innings. The first two batters he faced hit singles off him, but then he picked the first one off second base and struck out two straight to end the inning.
Over the second and third innings, Brubaker allowed just one baserunner, but in the fourth, Ian Happ doubled to right-center before Willson Contreras drew a walk. Brubaker worked his way into a full count against the next batter. He called time with the umpire, then threw one last pitch that was fouled off. Shelton and assistant athletic trainer Tony Leo trotted out to the mound to check on the right-hander before pulling him from the game.
Lefty Sam Howard relieved Brubaker and allowed three runs, all charged to Brubaker. In the fifth, right-hander Duane Underwood Jr., took over. He gave up a solo homer to Schwindel in the fifth, came back out to the mound for the sixth, walked one batter and was then pulled from the game by Shelton and head trainer Rafael Freitas.
Both left with right shoulder discomfort, according to the Pirates.
“It's tough, especially just trying to build off the [last] outing,” Brubaker said. “Was going good, was keeping the same mentality like I said the last time, one pitch at a time, and everything was going good. And then just came out of the game.”
Shelton and Brubaker did not discuss the severity of the injuries. And those injuries may very well have decided this game, since the Pirates’ offense gave enough to win, albeit in an odd way.
Right fielder Yoshi Tsutsugo led off the scoring with a first-inning homer off the scoreboard in right field. That isn’t the unusual part. He now has six home runs in his first 18 games as a Pirate. With every homer, his impressive power is becoming more the norm than a flash in the pan.
It was the fifth inning when things got weird. With the Pirates trailing 3-1 at the time, pinch-hitter Phillip Evans drew a leadoff walk, and center fielder Cole Tucker singled him over. Tsutsugo flew out ahead of two more walks from first baseman Colin Moran and Jacob Stallings, the second of which scored a run. On the first pitch of the next at-bat, left fielder Anthony Alford was hit by a pitch to tie the game.
Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks left the game after that, but the oddities continued. A wild pitch gave the Pirates the lead, then second baseman Wilmer Difo drove in two more with a single to left field, making it 6-3 Pirates. That was the end of the scoring, but just for good measure, Difo advanced to second during the next at-bat when a pick-off attempt from reliever Trevor Megill was chucked into the stands.
As it turned out, the the Pirates needed more runs than that. Stratton faced four different batters with two outs and just needed to get one of them. He walked one, a single dropped in from the second, Gamel couldn’t haul in a catch he normally makes against the third batter and Newman and Moran couldn’t pull off the game saver against Schwindel.
Even amid a 48-88 season, that is a tough loss to swallow.
“I mean it sucks. We've played well, and we've come back from deficits, and we've lost some games because we didn't catch the ball, and we need to catch the ball,” Shelton said.
