Game 19: Pirates 12 Diamondbacks 10

Sometimes it is easiest to let a game speak for itself, so here are a few facts without commentary:

• The Pirates and Diamondbacks used 43 total players.
• The Diamondbacks had four different starting pitchers in the box score in some capacity.
• Shelby Miller played left field after the D’Backs ran out of position players with Nick Ahmed’s 12th inning ejection.
• Both Jon Niese and Zack Greinke had pinch hit singles, Niese’s for an RBI.
• The two teams combined to throw 510 pitches.
• The game took 5 hours and 25 minutes. It started at 4:10 EST. At 4:35, I left to go watch the Indianapolis Indians play the Durham Bulls. I watched the whole game, got in my car, drove back home, and turned the TV on in time for the Diamondback’s 12th inning rally, and then the subsequent 13th inning.

Ostensibly, this game is about two things, and its about the two things that the first 29 games of the season have been about: the Pirates’ pitching staff’s inability to record enough outs, and the incredible ability of the Pirate offense to put people on base. Let’s go back to bullet points. All of the following sins can be attributed to the pitching staff today:

• Francisco Liriano was handed a 3-1 lead in the top of the third and he immediately gave it back to the Diamondbacks with a a three-run Wellington Castillo homer.
• The Pirates build their lead back up to 8-4, but Ryan Vogelsong was allowed to start the eighth inning after a scoreles seventh (presumably to give rest to Tony Watson and Neftali Feliz and Arquimedes Caminero … it almost worked!) and he served up a homer and a walk. Watson came into the game and allowed the run to score, to close the score to 8-6.
• Mark Melancon came out to close out the ninth, and gave up a two-run homer to Paul Goldschdmidt, 8-8.
• Credit where credit is due, Kyle Lobstein somehow kept the Diamondbacks off of the scoreboard in the 10th and 11th. The Pirates scored two in the 12th, Neftali Feliz came in. “Feliz has been really good this year,” I said in an act of unforgiveable hubris.
• Feliz, on what was presumably supposed to be a rest day, threw FORTY-THREE PITCHES, giving up three hits, walking two batters, and somehow striking out the side and leaving the bases loaded with only two runs scored, re-tying the game at 10.
• Arquimedes Caminero gave up a lead-off single in the 13th before settling in, throwing heat, and striking out two hitters to record his first career save. So there was that, at least!

On the flip side, this is what the offense did:

• 20 hits, along with drawing eight walks.
• Seven doubles: three by David Freese, one apiece for Harrison, Polanco, Marte, and Rodriguez.
• A Jason Rogers triple that started the scoring in the third inning.
• A three-run rally in the third, spurred by that Rogers triple.
• A five-run rally in the fourth, driven by five singles.
• Two runs in the 12th, with a Freese double scoring Andrew McCutchen and a Starling Marte single scoring Freese.
• Two more runs in the 13th, thanks to back-to-back doubles from Harrison and Rodriguez, then a single by the pinch-hitting Niese. Both Rodriguez’s double and Niese’s single were directed at Shelby Miller, left fielder.

This weekend of crazy baseball in Arizona did little to change my existing opinion of the Pirates. The Pirate offense is, at the very least, very good and possibly quite a bit better than even that (Andrew McCutchen hasn’t heated up yet and they’re still scoring runs in bunches many nights). The Pirate pitching staff is obviously this team’s weak spot, but I think that they’re both better than they appear right now (the struggles of Watson, Melancon, and Caminero, and today, Melancon and Feliz) have been big contributors to the problems) and likely to get better with improved health and the emergence of whatever emerges from the talented crop of pitchers currently in Indianapolis.

The only question that matters right now is this: can the Pirates win enough games now, while they figure their pitching staff out, to be in position to take advantage of when their pitching staff solidifies? Last year they went 18-22 in April and May while their offense rounded into shape, and while I will (for the 100th time) not say that their 18-22 start is what cost them the NL Central, a 20-20 start would’ve earned them a tie with the Cardinals and a 21-19 start would’ve won them the division.

What that means is this: yes, this game was ridiculous, frustrating, silly, insane, and dumb at points. And yes, the Pirates should’ve won easily without Mark Melancon needing to face Paul Goldschmidt with the game on the line, and frankly, you’d hope that that your closer would hold that lead even with Goldschmidt up. And they definitely should’ve won in 12 with Feliz holding a two run lead. And while the facts are that Liriano kept the game close early, that Vogelsong and Watson let the Diamondbacks back in, and that Melancon and Feliz couldn’t close the game out with two-run leads, the main fact is that the Pirates won tonight and are now 10-9.

They have to find ways to win these games. They somehow did it tonight. I have no idea how they’ll try to do it again tomorrow. We’ll just have to hope they can figure it out then.

Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images