Brault gets no support
Ninth-inning run prevents shutout
Tuesday night, Cleveland Indians first baseman Carlos Santana launched a ball deep down the left-field line in the 10th inning of a tie game. It hooked near the foul pole at PNC Park, and the Pirates, at least, thought it flew on the wrong side of it.
Nonetheless, the umpires called it fair on the field and upheld that call after review. The three-run homer saddled the Pirates with their 15th loss in 19 games, and the lack of clarity on the home run left them with some questions afterward.
Wednesday, the Pirates had no such questions.
This time, with the game scoreless in the top of the sixth and runners on first and second, Santana did it again. Right-hander Dovydas Neverauskas threw Santana a cutter that didn’t move, and Santana ripped it 401 feet, over the bleachers in right field.
The Pirates, meanwhile, didn’t have a runner reach second base until the ninth. Cleveland starter Aaron Civale threw a complete game, allowing five hits and one run. Two of those hits, and the run, came in the ninth, which was not nearly enough to salvage the game.
As their offensive woes continued, the Pirates lost, 61, falling to 4-16 a third of the way through the 2020 season.
“I think we have guys who are being hard on themselves,” said catcher Jacob Stallings.
“I’m definitely in that category, too. I think everybody just wants to do so well, and we have guys that care, which I think is a big reason why they’re here and why they’ve become the players that they’ve become.
“At least in my case,
especially, I know it can be a burden at times, too. I think we have some guys that have gotten off to rough starts and just trying to work through it.”
For a while, it seemed like the game would be a battle between Civale and Pirates left-hander Steven Brault. As good as Civale looked all night, Brault went toe to toe with him. He struggled a bit with his pitch count in the first — throwing 29 pitches to just four batters — but settled in after that.
By the time the fifth inning rolled around, Brault had yet to allow a hit, his only baserunners coming on a walk and an error. He gave up two consecutive singles to start the fifth and nearly gave up more. Cleveland right fielder Domingo Santana ripped a line drive right back at Brault, who made an athletic play to nab it out of the air and double up left fielder Jordan Luplow with a throw to first.
After inducing a ground ball to end the inning, that was it for Brault, who threw 80 pitches but is still in the process of working up to his full capacity since a shoulder strain in March kept him on the shelf for a period of time.
“Of course I wanted to [keep pitching]. I felt really good,” Brault said. “And I understand there’s a buildup process, so I’m not gonna let it frustrate me. I’m just gonna be ready to go further in my next outing.
“I was glad that they let me go that far. Now, I feel like the build-up process is pretty much over. Once you get up to about 80 pitches, you’re pretty much ready to go.
“It’s like running a marathon. You don’t run 26 miles. You only have to run 15 and you know you’re good. So we’ll see what the plan is, but I’m ready to go.”
Neverauskas gave up the bomb to Santana.
Right-hander Geoff Hartlieb pitched a scoreless seventh, before another righthander, Tyler Bashlor, made his Pirates debut. He loaded the bases with walks and then gave up a three-run double down the left-field line to Domingo Santana.
In the ninth, with the game already out of hand, the Pirates battled back at least a little.
Cole Tucker pinch-hit for Stallings, who had two of the team’s three hits to that point. Tucker drove a ball to the wall in right center, though, cruising into second with a double. Two batters later, shortstop Kevin Newman drove a single to right, advancing Tucker to third, and Josh Bell hit a sacrifice fly to the wall in right, scoring Tucker.
That was it, though, as first baseman Colin Moran flew out to the center to end the game.
It was a game in which the bullpen and the lineup struggled mightily.
That combination, as the Pirates have shown multiple times this year, was hard to overcome, and the Pirates didn’t.
“I would say for everyone, just naturally, it’s a lot easier to be negative with yourself,” Stallings said.
“It’s a lot harder, especially when things aren’t going well, to be positive with yourself. And we’ve got a lot of young guys, too. Some of them, this is the first time they’ve struggled in the big leagues.
“That within itself has a lot of challenges that come along with it. If I had the answer, I think we’d probably be playing a little better. We have a lot of good players, so we’re going to get out of it. We just need to get out of it sooner rather than later.”