Pittsburgh Pirates Takeaways & Throwaways – One Bad Inning

The Pittsburgh Pirates began the second half of the 2016 season with a 5-1 loss to the Washington Nationals on Friday night, ultimately done in by a big seventh inning by Washington. Here are the takeaways and throwaways from the first game of the second half of the season.

Takeaways

• Other than the four walks that he issued, Francisco Liriano had one of his better starts as of late. When he left the game in the seventh inning with no outs, he had only given up one run. But the disaster that was the seventh added two more runs to his total for the night. This start certainly represents a step in the right direction, as the first half of the season was rather rough for Liriano. He’ll look to build on this start his next time out, which should be next Thursday against the Milwaukee Brewers.
• Entering the game, Stephen Strasburg had not allowed a stolen base. That changed in the fifth inning when Starling Marte swiped his 31st base of the season. Then in the seventh Andrew McCutchen grabbed just this third stolen base of 2016. At this pace Marte will almost certainly steal 50 bases this season and perhaps McCutchen will run more in the second half.

Throwaways

• It’s easy to look back and say what should or should not have happened, but Clint Hurdle should have gone to the bullpen for the seventh inning. Liriano has been shaky all season and Hurdle should have been happy with six strong innings. Instead, Liriano allowed the first two hitters to reach in the inning before the call to the bullpen was made.
• In the seventh inning with men on first and third, Neftali Feliz was brought in to face Strasburg. Strasburg laid down the bunt and Feliz retrieved it. Feliz quickly looked back to third and made the throw to first. The throw was off and Strasburg was safe. While the play was unfolding, Danny Espinosa broke for home and scored, giving the Nationals the lead. This being a fairly routine play, Feliz should have looked Espinosa back to the bag longer since Strasburg is not a very good runner. Instead, the play was forced and everyone was safe.
• The bad luck continued in the seventh when Feliz uncorked a wild pitch that Eric Fryer could not handle. Once Fryer got the ball he whipped it down to third to try and get Clint Robinson out, only to have it get passed Jung Ho Kang, allowing Robinson to score. The damage did not end there as Feliz served up a two run homer to Michael Taylor, extending the Washington lead to four runs.

W – Stephen Strasburg (13-0)

L – Francisco Liriano (5-9)

Line of the Night

Tonight we’ll focus on Strasburg, as he turned in another fantastic start this season.

Strasburg needed 105 pitches (69 for strikes) to complete eight innings and in that time allowed just one run on three hits. He only walked two to go along with six strikeouts. Strasburg pristine record now sits at 13-0 and is very much in the conversation for the NL Cy Young Award.

Up Next

The series continues on Saturday at 7:05pm when Gerrit Cole (5-4, 2.77) makes his return to the mound after a stint on the disabled list due to an injury to his right tricep. He’ll be opposed by Tanner Roark (8-5, 3.01) who pitched most recently on July 10th game against the New York Mets in a relief role. Roark won his previous start on July 6th against the Milwaukee Brewers, limiting them to four runs over seven innings while striking out six.