Pittsburgh Pirates Takeaways & Throwaways – Opening the Series with a Loss

The Pittsburgh Pirates dropped their fourth game in a row, this time it was a 1-0 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers. Here are the takeaways and throwaways from the defeat.

Takeaways

• Jameson Taillon turned in six strong innings on Friday, much better than his last start against the Brewers back on August 27th. He allowed one run on three hits and no walks to go along with four strikeouts. Of the 14 games that Taillon has started, he has registered quality starts in 11 of them, a very impressive performance so far in his young career.
• Andrew McCutchen collected three hits, accounting for almost half of the team’s offense. His double and two singles in four at-bats brought his slash line up to .253/.330/.415 for the season, so a few more games like the one he had on Friday and he could easily have his batting average up over .260. It’s still well below what fans are used to seeing out of him, but at least he is trending in the right direction.

Throwaways

• Once again the offense for the most part was quiet. While they did collect seven hits, they were not able to string them together and bring any runs across. The team will need to reverse this trend quickly, or they risk losing ground in an already tight race for the two Wild Card spots in the National League.
• The Pirates had some questionable decisions on the basepaths that erased potential scoring chances late in the game. In the seventh inning Matt Joyce drew a walk and was replaced with Alen Hanson as a pinch runner. Carlos Torres made multiple throws over to keep Hanson close and almost picked him off. Hanson decided to try to steal second and the Brewers saw it and Torres threw to first before they nailed him at second. Then in the eighth Josh Harrison singled to start the inning. Corey Knebel threw over to first and the ball bounced well past first base. Instead of just advancing to second on the error, Harrison kept running and was thrown out easily at third. In a close game such as the contest on Friday, the runners should not have been making such poor decisions. The team is struggling right now to get runners on and cannot afford to lose them because of ill advised decisions.

W – Blaine Boyer (2-3)

L – Jameson Taillon (3-4)

S – Tyler Thornburg (7)

The #Pirates fall 1-0 to the #Brewers to open up their homestand. Who was your Player of the Game?

— Jason Rollison (@jrollisonpgh) September 3, 2016

Line of the Night

Tonight’s Line of the Night goes to Jameson Taillon, who unfortunately did not get the run support he needed and was handed the loss.

Taillon worked six strong innings and only gave up one run. That run came in his last inning of work when he hit Martin Maldonaldo, and he came around to score on Scooter Gennett‘s double over Andrew McCutchen’s head. But overall he had a great start on Friday. He once again did not walk a batter and was very efficient with his pitches, as he threw 51 of his 76 pitches for strikes. His next start is scheduled for Wednesday and he’ll take on the St. Louis Cardinals.

Up Next

The series continues on Saturday at 7:05 in a match up featuring Jimmy Nelson (7-13, 4.45) and Ivan Nova (11-6, 4.41). The Pirates hit Nelson hard in his last start on August 27th, surrendering six runs (five earned) in less than four innings of work. Nova’s last start was against the Brewers last weekend and he tossed six great innings of one run ball. This will be Novas third start at PNC Park, and so far he has given up just four runs in 16 innings in his new home ballpark.