In our daily Wake-Up Call, we get you ready for the day with a complete look at all things Pittsburgh Pirates.
Winners of five straight games heading into Monday night’s matchup with the Washington Nationals, the Pittsburgh Pirates saw their win streak snapped, dropping the first game of the series 3-2.
Jameson Taillon was a little better for the Bucs and kept them in the game, but he still struggled to make quality pitches when he needed to.
Taillon, who gave up 12 earned runs and 14 hits in his last 5.1 innings of work, went six solid for the Bucs, allowing three earned runs and seven hits while striking out five.
He was outpitched by Washington’s Tanner Roark, who went seven innings allowing just two runs.
Taillon drove in a run with a double and Corey Dickerson homered for the Pirates to account for all of the scoring.
A big sequence came in the fourth with runners on first and second with Roark at the plate. Taillon uncorked a wild pitch to move the runners up and then Roark delivered an RBI single to give the Nats a 2-1 lead.
Trea Turner followed with an RBI single to give Washington all it would need.
Quite simply that can’t happen.
Kingham to stick in rotation
It was announced before the game that Nick Kingham would stay in the rotation and would make his second career start Friday in Milwaukee.
Steven Brault moves to the bullpen.
It will be interesting to see how Clint Hurdle uses Brault being that he’s the only lefty in the pen not named Felipe Vazquez.
Brault’s not really a situational lefty so it will be interesting.
As for Kingham, he’s guaranteed this next start and that’s it as the Bucs won’t need a fifth starter for a while after Friday and Joe Musgrove should be back by then.
But if Kingham pitches will again, Hurdle will have another tough decision on his hands.
Up Next
The Pirates and Nats hook up for game two of the series tonight and it won’t get any easier for the Bucs as they have to face Max Scherzer (5-1, 1.62 ERA).
He will be opposed by the Bucs’ Chad Kuhl (3-1, 4.55).
Kuhl has pitched pretty well lately so it will be interesting to see if he can continue his momentum.
#Bucsin280
After each Pittsburgh Pirates game, we take to our twitter to recap the game in 280 characters. Think of it as a snapshot need-to-know from the game. Here now is the #Bucsin280 from last night. Follow us on Twitter to see these in real time!
#Pirates lose 3-2 to the #Nationals. Taillon was decent. 6 innings, 3 runs given up. Dickerson hit a home run but otherwise, the offense was quiet. 6 team hits. Scherzer tomorrow. Strasburg the day after. This was the one you wanted. Ah well. #BUCSin280
— Pirates Breakdown (@piratebreakdown) May 1, 2018
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