There wasn’t a whole lot that went right for the Pirates in this one. Charlie Morton wasn’t bad, but the Mets followed the Braves’ lead from last week and went with a lefty-heavey lineup against Charlie Morton tonight and put a ton of balls into play and ended up with 11 singles off of Morton in six innings. Despite that, two of the three runs that he gave up were mostly the fault of bad defense because Brandon Wood let a pretty routine double play deflect off of him and Chris Snyder allowed two passed balls in the Mets two-run second inning.
The Pirates’ offense didn’t help, either. Dillon Gee looked like an ace racking up eight strikeouts in seven innings and the Pirates barely mustered any offense at all after Chris Snyder’s two-run homer in the second. Of course, Gee isn’t an ace and when Garrett Jones and Andrew McCutchen strike out five times between them, it’s going to be a rough night for the Pirates.
With all of that said, quibbling about how Clint Hurdle used his bullpen tonight seems a bit superfluous. Still, I think it’s something at least worth talking out. Dan McCutchen has a great ERA this year, but he barely ever strikes anyone out I still think he works better as a swingman than he does as a high-leverage guy. That said, Hurdle was definitely hamstrung a bit by Joe Beimel’s injury, as an inning with Carlos Beltran and Daniel Murphy leading off would probably be a Beimel spot in a tie game. Jose Veras, for as good as he’s been this year, has struggled with lefties. He’s also obviously not comfortable with putting Danny Moskos into such a big spot yet and they haven’t used Evan Meek on back-to-back days since his return from the DL. So who does that leave? I guess McCutchen, who’s been pretty good against lefties this year.
In the end, getting outhit 15-5 when one of your best starters is on the mound is a pretty good recipe to lose a baseball game.
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