Why do these sorts of games always seem to happen in the afternoon?
The Pirates played catch-up with Mike Minor and the Braves all afternoon, getting an RBI single from Steve Pearce after falling behind 1-0 in the first, then a solo homer from Pearce in the seventh after the Braves went back ahead in the sixth. James McDonald pitched very well after another rough first inning, only stumbling on a homer by Eric Hinske. The Pirates got plenty of production from guys that haven’t been hitting all that well: Pearce had three hits batting in the two-slot, Jose Tabata got on base three times (two hits), and Matt Diaz and Lyle Overbay had two hits apiece as well.
All of this lead to the ninth inning, where Overbay lead off with a walk. Then Ronny Cedeno reached on an error, and Chris Snyder pinch-bunted the winning run to third base. Tabata was intentionally walked to load the bases with one out, which raised the Pirates’ win expectancy to 83.5%. That means that in tie games with the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the ninth inning, the home team wins 83.5% of the time, without even considering things like base runners (the speedy Pedro Ciriaco was on third) or position in the lineup (Pearce, McCutchen, and Walker were due up). And then Pearce hit into a double play and let all the air out of the stadium and the Pirates lost on a Brooks Conrad homer in the 11th.
There’s plenty of room for overthinking Clint Hurdle’s decisions in this one. Obviously the bunt is defensible with the winning run on second and no one out (this is one of the only defensible bunt situations), but Hurdle burned a pinch hitter to move an extremely fast runner to third and have the bat taken out of Jose Tabata’s hands while he’s in the midst of a hot streak. Basically, the Pirates got the winning run to second with no one out and thanks to the bunt, they had one shot to get the run to score. The other consequence of emptying the bench to do things like having a catcher bunt was leaving Xavier Paul, Ronny Cedeno, and Pedro Ciriaco to bat in the bottom of the 11th. And then there was the odd choice to bring Jeff Karstens into the game in the 11th. Joe Beimel and Evan Meek were the only two relievers to work last night and both were coming off of an offday and only pitched one inning yesterday. Chris Resop was available, too, and he’s pitched better lately after his ugly streak. Karstens was due for his regular work because the team has a weird number of offdays this week and I understand that was why he was available, but it’s not like he’s got blazingly great stuff that was a huge advantage out of the pen in the 11th. Why use a guy in a spot he hasn’t pitched in lately (meaning out of the bullpen instead of the rotation) when there are other good bullpen options?
Really, though, this one comes down to the Pirates just not getting the hits they needed. McCutchen and Walker and Doumit all went hitless on the afternoon and as a result the Bucs squandered more opportunities than the one they had in the ninth. A couple more hits, and we wouldn’t have to wonder about the other stuff.
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