Takeaways and Throwaways – Pirates can’t finish the sweep

The Colorado Rockies defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates 5-1 tonight, avoiding what would have been their first sweep of the season.  The Pirates are now 30-36 on the season.

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FINAL:  Colorado Rockies 5, Pittsburgh Pirates 1

Takeaways

• Chad Kuhl was decent tonight pitching five innings while surrendering three earned runs on four hits.  He struck out three and walked one.  After allowing a solo home run to Ian Desmond in the second inning, Kuhl got on a roll retiring seven straight batters at one point.  In the fifth inning, things got dicey for him.  After a leadoff walk, Kuhl gave up two straight weak singles allowing a run to score.  Max Moroff had a chance on the first single, but did not have enough arm to get the runner at second.  Later in the inning, Josh Bell botched a sacrifice bunt attempt allowing Kuhl’s third run to score.  The line didn’t look great tonight, but Kuhl did a nice job of limiting damage after his defense let him down.  That being said, Kuhl was yet again unable to pitch deep into the game and was pinch hit for in the bottom of  the fifth.  
• Daniel Hudson and Tony Watson combined for 1.2 hitless innings.  With each of their struggles this year, it was nice to see them have clean outings.  Hudson had one strikeout while Watson had two.

Throwaways

• The offense produced their fair share of base runners tonight but were ultimately unable to get the big hit.  Every non-pitcher starter had a hit tonight except Gregory Polanco and Josh Bell.  No player had a multi-hit game.  Adam Frazier had the Pirates only extra-base hit with a double in the sixth.  As a whole, the Pirate offense was just 1-8 with runners in scoring position.  They could only muster up six hits tonight and scored just one run.  That will not win you many games.
• Although the Pirates only had one error tonight, they didn’t exactly bring their A-game on defense.  Throughout the game, ground balls usually made for outs were turned to infield singles.  This happened in both the fifth and ninth inning.  These plays led directly to runs.

Line Of the Day

Chad Kuhl: 5.0 IP 4 H 3 ER 1 BB 3 K

W – German Marquez (5-3. 4.19 ERA) L – Chad Kuhl (1-6, 5.61 ERA)

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#Pirates drop series finale to the #Rockies 5-1. Who is your player of the game?

— Jason Rollison (@jrollisonpgh) June 15, 2017

Up Next

With an off day tomorrow, the Pirates will resume play Friday night hosting the Chicago Cubs.  Trevor Williams will oppose Eddie Butler.  First pitch is at 7:05.