Pirates' offensive dry spell drags into fifth loss on winless road trip

WASHINGTON -- Another day, another game lost in the late innings for the Pirates. Tuesday night's 3-1 loss to the Nationals marks the fifth straight loss, putting the team in jeopardy of losing every game on the current trip. And just about every game during this six-game stretch away from Pittsburgh has ended in similar fashion.

The Rays walked it off in extra innings on Friday. David Bednar blew a save Saturday. Tyler Beede and Anthony Banda gave up three runs in a tie game in the seventh on Sunday. Even after traveling to Washington, Chris Stratton gave up a two-run home run while trying to protect a 2-1 lead in the eighth on Monday.

We saw another re-run Tuesday night. Trying to keep it a 1-1 game, Wil Crowe pitched a scoreless seventh, then went back out for the eighth. After issuing a two-out walk with a runner already on first, Crowe faced Yadiel Hernandez, who was pinch hitting for Alcides Escobar, and gave up a two-run double on an 0-1 changeup that caught too much of the zone:

The easy way out is to blame the losses on the bullpen -- that this is a young group of arms that need to go through the necessary stage of learning what it takes to put those games away at the major-league level.

"We’re one play away," Derek Shelton said. "Right now, the people that we’re playing are making that play. We have to create our own breaks."

The Pirates have a good way of creating their own breaks -- scoring some runs. All you have to do is skim over the stats on the right side of the media notes and find this little nugget: The Pirates are 23-9 when they score four or more runs. They are now 6-36 when they they score three or fewer.

During this road trip where the Pirates have lost games late, the offense has produced four or more runs only once (Saturday's 6-5 loss).

It's easy to talk about the pitching staff needing to learn how to execute pitches, limit damage and learn how to win. But the lineup needs to help them out. Asking the bullpen to consistently pitch high-leverage innings -- which is already really hard to do at this level -- is a recipe for volatile results, at best.

These issues were front-and-center in Tuesday's loss. The Pirates had runners on first and second with one out or less on two different occasions in the first three innings. The lineup went 0 for 5 with five strikeouts, failing to do anything resembling production. Not even moving over a runner on a ground out or fly out. Overall, the offense went 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position, leaving eight men on base.

"We have to capitalize. When we get the first two guys on in an inning, we have to push a run across," Shelton said. "We just have to have more consistent at-bats, and we didn’t do that."

Yes, the offense is young. Oneil Cruz's inexperience was on display Tuesday as he went 0 for 4 with three strikeouts, and added his first error of the season. Yes, Ke'Bryan Hayes and Bryan Reynolds are really the only established hitters producing anything resembling consistency. When Jack Suwinski is cranking homers over the Clemente Wall in Pittsburgh, it sure is fun to talk about. But for the younger guys, the time in between the homers is far too quiet, and it's putting too much strain on the pitching staff.

José Quintana gave the Pirates a great chance to win this game, allowing just one run on four hits, two walks and six strikeouts in six innings of work. Instead, he gets tagged with his 10th no decision in his 15th start of the season.

"Baseball has a lot of ups and downs, right? Teams that usually stay in the middle, usually at the end of the year are on top," Crowe said after the game. "You've gotta fight your way out of these little ruts. And usually it all evens back out if you do that. So stay the course.”

Right now, the Pirates are down. That's expected to happen with such a young roster. But that fight that Crowe speaks of has to manifest itself in some tangible form. Even if it doesn't result in wins and losses right now, the only true way to track progress is through results.

"Every night we go out, there’s learning moments that we have that we have to take away," Shelton said. "Ultimately, it comes down to we have to create our own opportunities and we’re not doing that right now."

• Speaking of volatile swings in production, Diego Castillo is riding a bit of a high right now. He was responsible for the Pirates' only run of the game, working a full count against Patrick Corbin -- who had his way with the Pirates' lineup, racking up 12 strikeouts -- and jumped on a fastball on the outside corner:

The homer was Castillo's sixth in his last 13 games, which is also the second-highest total in Major League Baseball since June 13, trailing only Paul Goldschmidt's seven homers over that span.

"It's given me a lot of confidence at the plate," Castillo said. "I know I’m hitting the ball hard. I’m just concentrating on hitting the ball on the barrel all the time. But I’m not concentrating about homers or whatever it is. I’m concentrating on we’ve gotta start winning soon."

Castilllo -- an infielder -- also added two sliding catches in right field, making it look like he's actually pretty comfortable out there:

Of course, the play he attempted to make on the two-run, two-out double that broke the tie in the eighth came with a 75-percent catch probability. However, both Shelton and Castillo maintained it wasn't that easy of a play. And once that ball hit the ground, any excitement Castillo had over the two sliding catches quickly vanished.

"It was good. It was fun in the moment," Castillo said. "I was having fun until that double happened. When we started losing again, I just forgot about those plays."

• The Pirates did not lose this game because of this reason, but home plate umpire Jeremie Rehak's strike zone was abysmal. He rung up multiple hitters on pitches considerably out of the strike zone, but none were worse than the call on the final out of the game:

Mr. Manfred, when are the robo umps coming to MLB?

• Bednar has been unavailable out of the bullpen since he threw 29 pitches on Saturday in Tampa Bay. Shelton revealed that Bednar has been dealing with some lower back issues. The team hopes a stint on the injured list isn't in the cards as they think he'll be available in the coming days. Obviously, Bednar's absence would put even more strain on the bullpen.

• Prior to the game, Aaron Fletcher was recalled from Class AAA Indianapolis while Miguel Yajure was optioned back to Indy. Zach Thompson is on track to return from the 15-day IL on Sunday, so adding Fletcher in the meantime gives Shelton another arm in the bullpen.

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
• Scoreboard

THE HIGHLIGHTS

THE INJURIES

• 10-day injured list: OF Ben Gamel (hamstring), 1B Yoshi Tsutsugo (lumbar muscle strain)

• 15-day injured list: RHP Zach Thompson (forearm), LHP Dillon Peters (back)

• 60-day injured list: SS Kevin Newman (groin), OF Jake Marisnick (thumb) OF Canaan Njigba-Smith (wrist), OF Greg Allen (hamstring), RHP Blake Cederlind (UCL), RHP Nick Mears (elbow surgery), Roberto Pérez (hamstring, out for season)

• COVID injured list: INF/OF Tucupita Marcano, RHP Duane Underwood Jr.

THE LINEUPS

Shelton's card:

1. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
2. Bryan Reynolds, CF
3. Oneil Cruz, SS
4. Michael Chavis, 1B
5. Josh VanMeter, 1B
6. Diego Castillo, RF
7. Jack Suwinski, LF
8. Michael Perez, C
9. Hoy Park, 2B

And for Dave Martinez's Nationals:

1. Lane Thomas, LF
2. Juan Soto, RF
3. Josh Bell, 1B
4. Nelson Cruz, DH
5. Maikel Franco, 3B
6. César Hernández, 2B
7. Alcides Escobar, SS
8. Riley Adams, C
9. Victor Robles, CF

THE SCHEDULE

The Pirates try to avoid the sweep tomorrow with first pitch scheduled for 1:05 p.m. Matching righties Mitch Keller (2-5, 4.77) and Paolo Espino (0-1, 2.21) on the mound. I'll have you covered once again.

THE CONTENT

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