The losses can blur together after a while.
Friday’s 7-2 loss to the Brewers at PNC Park was the Pirate’s fifth defeat in a row. It’s the fifth time this year they’ve had a losing streak of at least five games, including at least one every month.
Friday also marked the Pirates’ 81st game, the midpoint of the season. They’re 29-52, putting them on pace for 58 wins and 104 losses.
That’s a lot of losing.
“Yeah, it’s frustrating,” Derek Shelton said after the game. “It’s frustrating when we have [situations] where we can’t get outs. My job is to continue to stay the course and stay positive and continue to teach, mine and the staff’s. To say you don’t get frustrated, that’s not true, but we have to continue just to move through it.”
There could be even more losing and frustration on the horizon once Ben Cherington deals away Adam Frazier, Richard Rodriguez and whichever other veterans are in demand come the trade deadline.
The only way to potentially avoid that even worse fate, and maybe even salvage a bit more of this Major League season, will come down to whether those lessons from the staff pay off.
Shelton likes to call them "teachable moments," There hasn't been at a shortage of them during the past two seasons. More will come.
Let’s look at three potential areas that need addressed from Friday’s loss:
BRUBAKER WAS OFF
While his season stats are a bit higher than expected, JT Brubaker has been probably the bright spot in the Pirates’ rotation this year.
Friday night was one of his worst starts of the year. While he gave six innings, he allowed five runs, and is fairly lucky that it was only that many, considering the Brewers went deep three times against him in the first two innings.
The most titanic of those blasts was a 450-footer from Jace Peterson. Brubaker didn’t even bother to watch it hit off the batter’s eye:
Those three homers combined to travel nearly a quarter of a mile (1,284 feet). Nothing cheap about them. Even though Jackie Bradley Jr.’s shot did hit the top part of the wall before bouncing into the Brewer’s bullpen, it still was over 400 feet, per Baseball Savant’s tracking.
"Hung pitch, 3-1 count with two-seam and then tip your cap to Jackie getting it out on a pitch out of the zone,” Brubaker said, going through the three pitches. “… It happens. This team's hot, and that's what happens with a hot team."
The other runs came in the sixth after Brubaker got his mitt on a bouncing ball from Willy Adames, turning a potential double-play into an infield single.
Brubaker misread how hard it was hit, and was overly defensive to protect his face.
“It was like I got my glove there too quick and then I tried to get my glove out of the way, and it hit off the glove,” he said.
The homers, the fielding mistake. There will be plenty for Brubaker and Oscar Marin to discuss.
“The one thing about JT is he takes information probably about as well as anybody we have,” Shelton said. “We’ll move on from it.”
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NINTH?
The Pirates had very little chance of pulling off the comeback by the time Kyle Crick came in to pitch the ninth, but his frame more or less sealed the Pirates’ fate. He wasn’t hit hard, but two weakly hit singles and a walk produced a pair of runs.
Well, that and a whole lot of free bases.
The Brewers picked up three swiped bags in the ninth, and a wild pitch brought one of those two runs home.
In the dugout after the inning, cameras caught Jacob Stallings getting heated with the reliever.
What their conversation was about is not known. What is known is that had Crick held runners on better or mixed up his timing toward the plate, at least one of those runs would have come off the board.
It's not as if this is new. The last time a baserunner was caught stealing with Crick on the mound was August 26, 2018. That includes a 5-for-5 stretch for base-stealers this year.
“We’ve got to do a better job there controlling the running game, just so they don’t get in scoring position,” Shelton said. “We didn’t do that tonight, so that’s something we need to address.”
OH, THE BATS
At this point, what else is there to say?
The offense is desperate for a shot of adrenaline. They have scored two or fewer runs in each game during this losing streak. Friday, they went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position and stranded seven.
Shelton says that as a team, they are being too passive at the plate.
“We need to get back to being aggressive because I think the previous 10 games before that [Rockies series] we’d actually swung the bat pretty well,” Shelton said before Thursday’s game. “Then we kind of got back on our heels a little bit. We need to get off ‘em.”
A lack of aggressive at-bats and swings has been a common theme the past two years. While the message has taken to some players, such as Bryan Reynolds – who homered and doubled Friday – as a whole, the results and approach haven’t been there.
At least not long-term. They have had spurts. In the nine games before this losing streak, the Pirates put up 48 runs. They won six of those games.
The promise of potentially breaking out is what they are holding onto right now.
“It's really just a one-day-at-a time thing,” Brubaker said. “Anything can happen at any given day."
MORE FROM THE GAME
• After failing to get a batter out Thursday and walking three, Clay Holmes bounced back nicely Friday, tossing a clean inning seventh inning on just seven pitches.
• Ben Gamel has been barreling the ball well lately, driving a couple fly balls to the wall Friday. In the second, it went for a double, setting up the Pirates' first run. The one in the eighth, following Reynolds' homer, fell just short of becoming back-to-back shots. He has four barrels (95+ mph exit velocity with ideal launch angle) over the past eight days, tied with Reynolds for the team lead in that barely over week-long stretch.
• Some injury news: The Pirates placed Erik Gonzalez on the 10-day injured list before the game with a right oblique strain. He exited Thursday's game early after beating out an infield single in the sixth.
Wilmer Difo had his contract selected to take his place. Difo made the final out of the game, bouncing out as a pinch-hitter. To make room on the 40-man roster, Trevor Cahill (calf) was transferred to the 60-day injured list.
Gregory Polanco has not been in the lineup three consecutive games due to hip inflammation, but did appear as a pinch-hitter Friday. He drew a walk.
• Considering the Pirates lost both Collin Moran and Gonzalez to the injured list the past two days, why did they go with Difo over a traditional first baseman such as Will Craig? The short answer is defensive flexibility.
"It factors in that he can play first, second, short, third," Shelton said before the game. "He’s probably our most versatile guy now because he can play everywhere.That had a lot to do with bringing him back up. We need that versatility."
Difo has not played first base in a professional game. Expect Phillip Evans and Gamel to continue to get the majority of the playing time there.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
1. Adam Frazier, 2B
2. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
3. Bryan Reynolds, CF
4. Jacob Stallings, C
5. Ben Gamel, RF
6. Kevin Newman, SS
7. Phillip Evans, 1B
8. Jared Oliva, RF
9. JT Brubaker, RHP
And for Craig Counsell's Rockies:
1. Luis Urias, 3B
2. Willy Adames, SS
3. Christian Yelich, LF
4. Omar Narvaez, C
5. Tyrone Taylor, RF
6. Jace Peterson, 2B
7. Keston Hiura, 1B
8. Jackie Bradley Jr., CF
9. Adrian Houser, RHP
THE SCHEDULE
Cody Ponce (0-1, 7.88) will get the spot start against Eric Lauer (2-3, 4.50) Saturday. First pitch will come your way at 4:05 p.m.
IN THE SYSTEM
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• Greensboro
• Bradenton
THE CONTENT
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