After the defense and pitching spent the first eighth of the season bailing the Pirates’ offense out after awful performance after awful performance, things went in the opposite direction in this one. Charlie Morton was not particularly sharp, nor was Jared Hughes (who was recalled to take Evan Meek’s place) or Tony Watson. The four errors committed behind them did not help things.
The end result was that the Pirates dug themselves into a hole early and they couldn’t get out of it, even though they scored quite a few runs late in the game. That means that Pedro Alvarez’s sixth homer of the season was wasted, as was his RBI single in the eighth. They weren’t any more wasted than Jose Tabata’s early two-run homer, actually, but Tabata’s homer actually gave the Pirates the lead early on.
I suppose in the grand scheme of things, it’ll actually be a good thing if this game is a sign that the Pirates’ bats are really waking up. Watching it happen in real time was pretty brutal, though, even with the offensive uptick at the end.
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