If the 2014 Pirates taught us anything, it’s that there’s no limit to the number of excruciatingly frustrating losses that a good team can rack up over the course of 162 games (or maybe it’s that the better the team you’re watching is, the tougher most losses get to swallow, I guess we’re debating a chicken and an egg, here). That’s a good thing to keep in mind, because the 2015 edition of the Pirates has opened the season up with two tooth gnashers in Cincinnati.
Last night/this morning’s game had all of the elements of a strong Pirate win. Gerrit Cole never really had his best stuff (I think we can blame the 2 1/2 hour rain delay for now, though there’s not a whole lot of time to make excuses for him this year), but he grinded through five innings and the offense matched everything that the Reds threw at them. They countered (another) Todd Frazier home run with a run-scoring Pedro Alvarez double to left-center on the sort of beautiful swing that reminded everyone of what we all hoped Pedro Alvarez would be capable of. They fell behind on a wild pitch, but got doubles from Starling Marte and Francisco Cervelli to even the score up. They fell behind on a Brandon Phillips single, and evened up with a Neil Walker sac fly after a crazy Josh Harrison rundown. They finally took their first lead of the game in the seventh with a pinch-hit Corey Hart single, and then Jared Hughes and Antonio Bastardo immediately coughed it up. The game went on until the wee hours of the night, until Radhames Liz hit a batter and walked a batter and gave up a hit to Joey Votto, giving the Reds their second win and the Pirates their second loss of the season.
It’s too early to say much of anything about anything, but it’s hard to not remember the ugly April and May and June of last year, when it occasionally felt like the only way the Pirates could win games was by scoring last and then walking off the field to ensure that their bullpen was unable to screw anything else up.
I think everything will seem much better once the Pirates put one in the win column.
Image by Andy Lyons, Getty Images
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