Kevin Newman was the hero in 11th inning Sunday after being the goat in the first inning.
Newman’s bases-loaded walk with two outs in the bottom of the 11th capped a four-run rally and gave the Pirates an 11-10 victory against the Padres at PNC Park. It was a heckuva plate appearance as Newman fell behind 0-2 against Matt Wisler yet worked his way back into a favorable count and coaxed the bases on balls.
You can read more about the game here.
However, Newman made an inexcusable play that allowed the game’s first run to score.
With runners on second and third with one out in the first, Hunter Renfroe hit a routine pop fly to Newman, who was playing second base, on the edge of the outfield grass. Rookie shortstop sensation Fernando Tatis Jr. tagged from third base and scored, barely beating Newman’s throw to the plate.
It isn’t the first time a run has scored on a sacrifice fly to an infielder. However, it always occurs when the fielder has his back to home plate. Always.
In this case, Newman was facing home and simply wasn’t paying attention.
Granted, Tatis has exceptional speed. Yet a play like that should never occur at the major-league level. It might even get a player cut from the team in American Legion ball.
“He got his pocket picked,” Clint Hurdle said. “It’s a play that shouldn’t happen and it did happen. He’s got to wear it.”
Newman did not make any excuses, though any alibi would have been awfully flimsy.
“He made an aggressive play and he kind of caught me on my heels and there’s really nothing more to it than that,” Newman said. “I’ll take it as a learning moment and never let that happen again.”
You can watch the play in full — with commentary and a few different angles — right here:
The rookie has been impressive this season, especially after losing out to Erik Gonzalez in the spring training competition for the starting shortstop job then waiting his turn while Cole Tucker eventually flamed out and returned to Class AAA Indianapolis.
Yet it’s hard to chalk up allowing a runner to score from third base on a routine pop up as a rookie mistake. It was the most basic of fundamental breakdowns.
• The Pirates are off Monday before opening a three-game series against the American League West-leading Astros on Tuesday night in Houston.
It should make for potentially great theater as Gerrit Cole will be the Astros’ starting pitcher. It will be his first career appearance against the Pirates, the team that chose him first overall in the 2011 amateur draft from UCLA and a pitcher who won 19 games in 2015 and had one of the best postseason performances in franchise history when he beat the Cardinals in Game 2 of the 2013 NLDS as a rookie.
Cole, of course, was traded to the Astros in 2017 for Joe Musgrove, Michael Feliz, Colin Moran and Jason Martin.
Cole is an emotional sort and it will be interesting to see how he channels his energy Tuesday night. The guess here is it will go one of two ways, either he’ll throw a no-hitter or get knocked out by the fourth inning.
It is hard to imagine Cole having a run-of-the-mill outing in which he gives up something like three runs in six innings.
• It seems certain Jordan Lyles will rejoin the rotation sometime next weekend during a three-game series against the Brewers at Milwaukee.
Lyles tested his tight left hamstring Sunday in a rehab start for Indianapolis and threw 84 pitches in 5 1/3 innings without incident. The results were also good against Pawtucket, the Red Sox’s top farm club, as he allowed only one run and two hits with seven strikeouts and three walks.
In his past three starts, Lyles is 0-2 with a 6.93 ERA. The Pirates feel the lack of effectiveness was due to the hamstring, but I can’t help but wonder if the journeyman is regressing to the mean after posting a 4-1 record and a sparkling 1.89 ERA in his first nine games.
• You’ve got to hand it to the Pirates. They know how to spin everything positively.
A few years back, they donated a used school bus to the Boys and Girls Club of Bradenton. The press release referred to it as a “gently used bus.”
Before Sunday’s game, general manager Neal Huntington was asked if the Pirates would be buyers or sellers at the July 31 trade deadline. He did not give a direct answer, which was perfectly understandable considering the deadline is still five weeks away.
However, Huntington was quite clever with how he worded part of his answer. Instead of using the word “seller,” he referred to the possibility of “adding to the 2020 club.”
Ah, semantics.
• I like to joke with fellow scribes in the press box that a good opening paragraph for the story of that day’s game might be “Wow! What a ballgame!”
Of course, I’m being a bit of a wise guy when I say that. However, Sunday’s game was so interesting and dramatic, that the corny lead would have fit.
