It is one thing for me to log on here after each loss and write that the Pirates can’t keep playing this badly forever, but it’s another thing to believe it. With each runner stranded in scoring position, with every butchered defensive play, with each called strike 3 looking, it gets increasingly difficult for me to believe that the Bucs can turn this season around. Obviously this team wasn’t about to finish the year 11-151, but every loss and scoreless inning made it harder to believe that the Pirates had more in common with the club that started the season 9-2 than the team that dropped six games in a row.
So Monday was a nice palate cleanser after a week of disgusting baseball. The only thing nasty on the field Monday was Jared Jones; Milwaukee was utterly helpless against him, with Brice Turang getting twisted in to knots in Jones’ most purely entertaining strikeout of the night (he had 7 total). The Brewers struggled to even get their bat on the ball in the early going, with Jones picking up a gobsmacking 25 whiffs and allowing just one baserunner — a 2-out single in the 3rd — through 4 innings. Things seemed to fall apart on him in the 5th; Jones, who has made filling up the strike zone one of his signatures, started falling behind in the count. Rhys Hoskins homered to open the inning and Jones walked the next batter, but then set the Brewers down in order.
I thought that would be it, especially with Jones’ velocity dropping to a more pedestrian mid-90s in the inning. But Derek Shelton sent him back out for the 6th and Jones quickly got in trouble again, loading the bases. With the game tied at 1 and the offense doing its usual thing (nothing), this felt like the ballgame. But Jones escaped, and it was smooth sailing after that besides Aroldis Chapman’s meltdown in the 8th — so not particularly smooth sailing — but the Bucco bullpen only allowed a run from the 7th through the 9th.
Fortunately, it didn’t matter because the Bucs finally broke out of their slump. Andrew McCutchen led off the game with his 301st career home run, and the Pirates tacked on 3 runs in the 6th thanks to an error by Milwaukee and an RBI single from Oneil Cruz (off a lefty, no less!) Cruz had 3 hits on the day including a double, as did McCutchen. As a team, the Bucs racked up 9 hits and 4 walks, with everyone but the free-swinging Michael A. Taylor and the pinch-hit-for Rowdy Tellez reaching base at least once. I wouldn’t call it an offensive downpour by any stretch of the imagination, but after the way things have been going at the plate for this team, it was a refreshing glass of cool water after a week-long drought.
Bucco Ball 