Pittsburgh Pirates Takeaways & Throwaways – The Battered Buccos of Baseball

The Pittsburgh Pirates left Miami battered and bruised after an overall disappointing road trip, only to return to PNC Friday night to take another beating, this one just of the baseball variety, by the California Angels. The Bucs dropped the first of this three-game series 9 -2.

Takeaways

• The best thing we saw out of the Pirates all night were back-to-back homers from Starling Marte and Jung Ho Kang in the second. They gave the Buccos what proved to be a short-lived shot in the arm and Pirates fans one of the only things they had to cheer about all night.
• The guys in the pen stepped up to stop the hemorrhaging – Rob Scahill took over duties for Liriano, throwing 49 pitches in 2.1 innings allowing one hit, walking two, striking out two and giving the Bucs their first shut-out inning in the fifth. Wilfredo Boscan didn’t fare as well, coming in with one out left to get in the sixth, did that – but gave up two in the seventh and walked four, tying his record for all of the 40-innings he pitched in the minors this season.
• Given the injuries, the Pirates posted this humorous line-up before the game:

Today's lineup against the Angels.

Pirates had a rough time with injuries last night, so they go with the vets. -RI pic.twitter.com/qKt2F0AP44

— SportsNet Pittsburgh (@SNPittsburgh) June 3, 2016

Throwaways

• Liriano had another bad start. Make this one an EPICALLY bad start. He gave up three runs and walked three in the first; one run and walked Mike Trout in the second. The Buccos managed to get two runs in the second, only to have Frankie give them right back – in the third, giving up two runs and three hits. According to Root Sports, he averaged 22 pitches an inning through the first three. If Hurdle didn’t need to rely on the Bullpen for possible hitters later in the game, I suspect Liriano might have gotten the hook sooner than he did after one out on the third.
• Pirates have now dropped four straight. And going into two series’ against the Mets and Cards – they need to reverse this trend and how.
• Fielding looked like a comedy of errors, even though only one was actually scored (Marte in the second). In truth, the number of Pirates bodies splayed out across the field with a little white ball bouncing through could mostly be attributed to the Angels beating the shift all night long.

W – Francisco Liriano (4-5)

L – Jered Weaver (5-4)

Line of the Night 

Rob Scahill went long and temporarily stopped the Angels’ bats, allowing one hit, walking two, and striking out two in 2.1 innings’ of work.

Up Next

The Pirates take on the Angels in game two of the series at 4:05 p.m. Expected pitchers are Nick Tropeano (3-2) for the Angels and Jeff Locke (4-3) for the Pirates.