Bizarre plays seal loss in daytime opener
ST. LOUIS — There has to be something about the Pirates and doubleheaders, a common theme that one can use to explain the absurd moments, plays or sequences that simultaneously leave viewers scratching their heads or wanting to throw something out of frustration.
Instead of Roberto Perez getting hurt, Andrew Knapp getting ejected and Josh VanMeter having to catch, a cavalcade of disaster that occurred May 7 in Cincinnati, what happened Tuesday afternoon in St. Louis was slightly more widespread.
And ugly.
In fact, it’s hard to pinpoint one reason why the Pirates suffered a 3-1 loss to the Cardinals at Busch Stadium, their eighth in a row coming in the first half of this split doubleheader. There were too many incomprehensible things from which to choose.
“It was a little bit of a crazy day,” JT Brubaker said.
“Insane,” Jason Delay added.
How nuts was this one? Let’s just say two more Pirates made their MLB debuts — Delay and Canaan Smith-Njigba — and Yu Chang (yes, him) homered on what was the hardest ball anyone hit all game, and neither storyline earned a spot on the medal stand.
Taking home gold, at least when it comes to the never-beforeseen, had to be the Pirates’ 6-4-2-5-6-2 putout — you read that right — that ended the fourth inning.
With the bases loaded, two outs and Paul Goldschmidt at the plate, the Cardinals designated hitter bounced a ball to short that looked like it was going to be an easy force out to end the inning. However, second baseman Nolan Gorman got a terrific read, beat the throw and kept going around second base.
“That was one of the most heads-up baseball plays you’ll ever see,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said.
After catcher Yadier Molina scored easily, shortstop Edmundo Sosa tried to follow suit. The Pirates threw home, ran Sosa back to third, then peeled off to try to get Gorman. That pursuit never got serious, and Diego Castillo threw home to try to nab Sosa, who was ruled out of the baseline.
The most amazing part of the rollercoaster moment might’ve been that the Pirates didn’t screw it up. Seriously. The Cardinals forced the issue with Gorman’s turn, which yielded a run. The Pirates didn’t lose track of runners. There really wasn’t much more they could have done.
“The run would have scored either way,” Shelton said, “but I actually thought we handled the rundown pretty well.”
The issue, of course, was the silver medalist for ridiculous outcomes. A day after turning a SportsCenter-ready double play with a backhand flip, Castillo had a brutal game, so bad that bench coach Don Kelly was consoling him in the clubhouse after the game.
Castillo made throwing errors on consecutive pitches in the fourth, which contributed to the bases being loaded for Goldschmidt. Castillo made another error in the sixth, allowing Sosa to reach again. After Daniel Vogelbach pinchhit for Michael Chavis in the eighth, Vogelbach played the field for the first time this season and couldn’t make a routine play.
Vogelbachrarely plays first base and probably won’t again. The bigger issue was obviously Castillo.
“We watched him play shortstop [Monday] as well as you can play it,” Shelton said. “[Tuesday], he struggled on a throw, then he started to think about it. We just move on. I told him to keep going with what he’s doing. [Tuesday] wasn’t a good day. [Monday] was a really good day.”
The bronze medalist was another play in the fourth — or maybe not an actual play at all. With a 2-2 count on Gorman, Brubaker forgot to go from the stretch and tried to adjust after starting his windup. That’s a balk.
Only instead of calling it immediately, the umpiring crew didn’t take action until getting an earful from Molina — who had been picked off as a result — and conferring. They charged Brubaker with a balk and brought both teams back out onto the field.
“I asked for a new ball, stepped off the back of the rubber and was just focused on that one pitch,” Brubaker explained. “I just blacked out that there were runners on first and second.”
Shelton fumed at the time but afterward praised the umpires’ work.
“They should talk about it,” Shelton said. “They got it right.”
As for the game, Goldschmidt gave the Cardinals a 2-0 lead in the third inning with his 14th home run of the season, blasting a 2-1 sinker from Brubaker at the bottom of the zone.
Chang, who entered the game hitting .097, connected on an elevated changeup and hit one 107.3 mph off the bat. He also had two hits to raise his average 50 points.
Although he was the victim of some shoddy defense, Brubaker threw an excellent game for the Pirates, going 5⅓ innings and allowing three runs (two earned) on seven hits with two walks and five strikeouts.