I suppose if you want to have a charitable view of the universe today, you could say that the Pirates’ loss last night was the karmic counterpart of their win in the first game of Tuesday’s double-header: Jake Arrieta pitched a gem, the Pirates tied the game because the Cubs’ made some dumb/bad plays, and the Cubs ended up winning anyway. From the Pirate fan perspective, though, the Pirates had a chance to steal an unexpected win late in the game, squandered that chance, and now find themselves four games behind the Cardinals again barely 48 hours after we all dreamt of them drawing to within one game.
The game-tying, uh, “rally,” last night was remarkable in its ability to be exciting, frustrating, and disappointing, all with a brief flash of a solid fundamental play at the same time. It was exciting to see the Pirates get to a tiring Jake Arrieta. If we’re being perfectly honest, Arrieta threw a great game last night, but I didn’t think that he dominated the Pirates. He only struck out five hitters in eight innings, and they were at least able to get his pitch count up high enough that I was pretty surprised to see him on the mound for the eighth inning. The five singles off of him were obviously not good, but it was the sort of game that left me feeling like the Pirates would at least have a chance against him, should they see him again in a few weeks in a bigger situation. I’m not saying they’d definitely get to him or anything, just that I wouldn’t head into the game being certain that it was hopeless. It was frustrating because with runners on first and third and no outs, Pedro Florimon became what feels like the 700th Pirate to run into an out at home plate on the contact play. It was surprisingly fundamentally sound because after the Pirates loaded the bases again, Pedro Alvarez reacted PERFECTLY on a ground ball to Starlin Castro to delay the double play attempt and ensure the Pirates could score the tying run. And it was disappointing because the Pirates had runners at first and third with no outs and the bases loaded with one out [edited to remove the part where I forgot how many outs the final play started with: like I said yesterday, I’ve got way too much going on in my head right now].
It was similar to the loss the Pirates suffered to the Brewers a week ago: they fell behind early, they had a great opportunity to take a lead, and they emptied the bench in their attempt to do so while only managing to tie the game, leaving them short-handed and destined for an extra inning loss.
It’s also worth noting that AJ Burnett was excellent last night. His velocity was on point, his curveball was breaking and he was missing bats. He wore out a little bit early, which lead to the Cubs’ two-run sixth inning rally, but other than that he looked about as good as he’s looked this year, which is a nice sign given that he’s only two starts into a comeback that did not include a minor league rehab.
Meanwhile, in Milwaukee, Tommy Pham doubled his career home run total and the Cardinals beat the Brewers 5-4. Four games. Four games is a lot.
The Pirates/Cubs series concludes this afternoon with what looks an awful lot like a prospective slugfest. Charlie Morton and Kyle Hendricks take the mound at 12:35 today. Morton has been all over in September and August, mixing some excellent starts with some decent ones and some awful ones. I have no idea what to expect from him today, really. Hendricks had a decent early-summer run through about the All-Star break, but he’s been getting hit hard more regularly than not since mid-July.
I’ve said this before and been proven wrong, but geez, it sure feels like the NL Central race would be pretty close to over if the Pirates fall five back of the Cardinals today. Regardless of that situation, only being two ahead of the Cubs with a West Coast trip immediately followed by a stop at Wrigley would be a scary place to drop to after this series. A win today avoids us having to worry about either of those things, regardless of what the Cardinals do tonight. It’s a big game, in other words, though you likely don’t need me to tell you that.
Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images
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