PITTSBURGH _ On Tuesday night, Cleveland Indians first baseman Carlos Santana launched a ball deep down the left-field line in the 10th inning of a tie game. It hooked near the foul pole at PNC Park, and the Pirates, at least, thought it flew on the wrong side of it.
Nonetheless, the umpires called it fair on the field and upheld that call after review. The three-run homer saddled the Pirates with their 15th loss in 19 games, and the lack of clarity on the home run left them with some concerns afterward.
On Wednesday, the Pirates could have no such questions.
This time in the top of the sixth, with the game tied at zero, Santana did it again. With runners on first and second, right-hander Dovydas Neverauskas threw Santana a cutter that didn't move, and Santana ripped it 401 feet, over the bleachers in right field.
The Pirates, meanwhile, didn't have a runner reach second base until the ninth. Cleveland starter Aaron Civale threw a complete game, allowing five hits and one run. Two of those hits came in the ninth, which was not nearly enough to salvage the game. As their team offensive woes continued, the Pirates lost, 6-1, falling to 4-16 at the one-third mark of the 2020 season.
For a while, it seemed like the game would be a battle between Civale and Pirates lefty Steven Brault. As good as Civale looked all night, Brault went toe to toe with him. He struggled a bit with his pitch count in the first _ throwing 29 pitches to just four batters _ but settled in after that.
By the time the fifth inning rolled around, Brault had yet to allow a hit, his only base runners coming on a walk and an error. He gave up two consecutive singles to start the fifth, and nearly gave up more. Cleveland right fielder Domingo Santana ripped a line drive right back at Brault, who made an athletic play to nab it out of the air and double up left fielder Jordan Luplow with a throw to first.
After inducing a ground ball to end the inning, that was it for Brault, who threw 80 pitches but is still in the process of working up to his full capacity of pitches and innings since a shoulder strain in March kept him from throwing for a while.
The downside of that for the Pirates is that they pulled Brault after a fantastic five innings and turned to their bullpen. Neverauskas gave up the bomb to Santana. Right-hander Geoff Hartlieb pitched a scoreless seventh, before righty Tyler Bashlor, making his Pirates debut, loaded the bases with walks and then gave up a three-run double down the left field line to Domingo Santana.
In the ninth, with the game already out of hand, the Pirates battled back at least a little. Cole Tucker pinch-hit for catcher Jacob Stallings, who had two of the team's three hits to that point. Tucker drove a ball to the wall in right center, though, cruising into second with a double. Two batters later, shortstop Kevin Newman drove a single to right, advancing Tucker to third, and Josh Bell hit a sacrifice fly to the wall in right, scoring Tucker.
That was it, though, as first baseman Colin Moran flew out to the center to end the game.
It was a game in which the bullpen and the lineup struggled mightily. That combination, as the Pirates have shown multiple times this year, was hard to overcome, and the Pirates didn't.
