No sweep as bullpen falls apart
Banda, Keller give up three late runs
Many frustrating things have defined this Pirates season.
Losses, obviously. A bunch of those. There have also been injuries, a record number of players used, an offense that lacks power and productivity and pitching that hasn’t been much better.
On Wednesday, as the Pirates looked to finish off the National League’s worst team, two other storylines took center stage: the Pirates’ inability to nail down a sweep and the ongoing Gregory
Polanco saga.
As for the game, the Pirates remain the only MLB team without a sweep after suffering a 5-2 defeat to the Arizona Diamondbacks at PNC Park. Bryse Wilson was good, the bullpen was not, and the offense struggled to hit with runners in scoring position, going 1 for 11 and stranding nine.
The Pirates led, 2-0, after five, but their bullpen coughed up five runs in a three-inning stretch.
“It’s frustrating because we had the lead and kind of gave it back a little bit, then didn’t execute late,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “As well as our bullpen has pitched, we got ahead of guys and just didn’t finish ‘em off. And because we didn’t finish ‘em off, we got into counts where there were walks and extra runs scored.”
The Pirates are a staggering 0-11 this season with a chance to sweep. They’ve blown six shots at sweep since July 7 and remain the only major league team without one. The last time the Pirates went this late in the season without a sweep was 1995, while no MLB club has ever gone an entire season without registering at least one sweep.
Tied at 2 entering the top of the sixth, a familiar feeling began to unfold, the game slipping away. The Diamondbacks jumped in front, 3-2, on a pinch-hit home run from Carson Kelly, who clobbered a changeup from Anthony Banda that caught a little too much of the plate.
An inning later, with Kyle Keller pitching, left fielder David Peralta’s one-out double — on a low-and-outside fastball that Peralta smartly shot the other way — scored a pair, giving the Diamondbacks a 5-2 lead.
That Nick Mears, Banda and Keller could not hold a lead was hardly shocking. All three were in the minor leagues to start the season.
A much more appropriate and emotional storyline for Pirates fans right now is the present and future of Polanco, who was ironically the only Pirate with multiple hits, including a double. Polanco came up in the eighth with two on and popped out to first.
That, however, was not his worst moment of this game. Not even close.
In the sixth, with Arizona having seized momentum, Polanco let a routine single from Peralta scoot under his glove. The few fans that were here groaned. Polanco simply looked down in disgust.
That five-year, $35 million extension Polanco signed, the one tinged with so much hope and promise, has been reduced to this: the scene of Polanco standing alone in right field, head down, dejected, no solution in sight.
Polanco, who declined to speak with reporters, also seems keenly aware of the Pirates’ move to place him on outright waivers, his dwindling days in Pittsburgh or how much he’s struggled this season or the past few.
More than anything — and no, he’s not going to garner much sympathy here — Polanco just looks sad, in desperate need of a fresh start or a new home.
“I just told him to keep his head up,” Shelton said of Polanco. “I think the grass was a little bit wet. I think it snaked on him and got underneath his glove. I just told him to keep his head up and keep playing.”
The way this is going, it’s hard to see how another month of this dance makes sense, for either party involved.
Aside from Polanco, Jacob Stallings’ sacrifice fly in the fourth gave the Pirates their first run before Polanco doubled and scored on a single from Michael Chavis in the fifth.
The good news for the Pirates was a solid start from Wilson, who was brought off the 10-day injured list earlier in the day and made his first start since Aug. 14 against the Brewers.
Picked up in the Richard Rodriguez trade, Wilson did a solid job of using his fastball
up in the zone and seemingly keeping Arizona’s hitters offbalance. The Pirates righthander wound up striking out seven, and he also got 15 whiffs, including nine with his fastball.
Wilson allowed just a pair of singles over five scoreless innings.
“I think it’s a lot about the
sequencing and then the command as well,” Wilson said of all those whiffs. “I think they go hand-in-hand. While I was on the IL, we made a couple of minor mechanical changes that I think really showed, and I think that’s ultimately what really led to the swings and misses and the strikeouts.”