When you can’t buy a win, you can’t buy a win. Tonight, the Pirates lost on the strength of two poor fielding plays on back to back batters in the seventh. One was by Evan Meek, who elected to throw Austin Jackson out at the plate instead of taking an inning-ending double play on a hard-hit grounder by Miguel Cabrera. The next was Ryan Doumit failing to catch Meek’s throw on Brennan Boesch’s bouncer. Instead of ending the inning, two runs scored. The Ryan Doumit at first base experiment isn’t going particularly well.
The one bright spot was finally getting to see Jose Tabata play. His hustle more or less tied the game in the eighth when he stretched a hit into left-center into a double, then stole third base and scored on Neil Walker’s single. The steal of third was probably a bit ill-advised (one out, Walker and McCutchen coming up, Walker batting lefty and Gerald Laird, who made a great throw to nail Walker on the bases earlier, behind the plate), but he got a great jump and didn’t get thrown out so it’s hard to complain.
When you’re losing, though, you lose on poor fielding plays and grounding into bases-loaded double plays (in the second) and walkoff home runs. After games like this, it’s easy to wonder if the Pirates will ever find a way to win again.
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