Pirates squander pivotal scoring chances, Priester's scoreless outing

SAN FRANCISCO -- While some fans on the East Coast slept, the Pirates' bats did the same when presented with chances to manufacture runs in the first game of their West Coast trip Friday night.

A total of 11 runners were left on base and three key scoring opportunities, including a pair with the bases loaded in the final three innings, were wasted in a 3-0 loss to the Giants at Oracle Park. 

"We have to get runners in," Derek Shelton said. "We left what, 11 guys on? You cannot do that. We have to put the ball in play, we have to drive runners in. I mean, we gave ourselves opportunities tonight. It wasn't like there weren't opportunities for us to score a run. We just did not execute when we had those opportunities." 

The Pirates, who have now lost three straight games and nine of their last 11 to fall to 13-14, were shut out for the first time this season, but it's not as if scoring runs has been an easy task as of late. Since plating nine runs against the Phillies on April 14, the Pirates have scored three or less runs on nine occasions. It's just been par for the course over a dreadful slate of 11 games.

"We’re one big hit away from breaking the game open," said Jared Triolo, who went 1 for 4 with a second-inning double. “That’s the name of the game, we’ve got to get more runs across. Tomorrow is a new day. We’ll have to have a good approach against the pitcher and get some runs across.” 

The Pirates set the tone with their inability to push across runs in the first inning, as a two-out single by Ke'Bryan Hayes and a double by Connor Joe were wasted on a groundout by Edward Olivares. 

Two more wasted opportunities came in the form of bases-loaded situations in the seventh and ninth innings. In the seventh, a Michael A. Taylor two-out single was followed by a walk to Henry Davis and a pitch that struck Andrew McCutchen to load the bases for Bryan Reynolds. Reynolds got ahead in the count 2-0 before ultimately striking out swinging on a Ryan Walker slider that appeared to hit him.

Reynolds was again at the forefront of a bases-loaded at-bat in the ninth. Oneil Cruz and Taylor each singled to put runners on the corners with nobody out. Pinch hitter Rowdy Tellez went down swinging, McCutchen drew a walk to load them up again and Reynolds grounded into an inning-ending 1-2-3 double play that put the San Francisco faithful into a frenzy. 

One inning later, the inability to capitalize finally came back to haunt the visitors in the worst way possible, as David Bednar surrendered a three-run walk-off home run to Patrick Bailey:

"I mean, we hit some balls hard. We hit a lot of balls hard early. Cutch hit a ball that I thought was going to get out. We had the balls in the first," Shelton said. "We just did not execute with runners in scoring position." 

To make matters worse, the Giants' offense wasn't any better. The Pirates wound up finishing with an 8-6 advantage in the hit column, as Quinn Priester held the home team's bats at bay through six scoreless innings. Priester, who struggled mightily in allowing five runs and three home runs in his season debut against the Red Sox last time out, scattered three hits and walked one while striking out six en route to his first career scoreless performance. 

"Last week, we felt like we were one pitch away from a good one," Priester said. "This week, we were together and battled through some tough innings, and then also had our quick ones. Just continue to build on that, and put one foot in front of the other. Not do too much, and we'll be all right."

Priester threw 58 of his 84 pitches for strikes and used a balanced mix of 26 sliders and 24 sinkers. He showed an uptick in his slider usage after turning to it just eight times last week and found that his sinker was valuable in situations where he needed to get something in the zone. He also turned to his secondary pitches to keep hitters off balance, going 12 times apiece to his curveball and fastball while relying on his changeup 10 times. 

Priester, who generated 14 whiffs and benefitted from 15 called strikes, allowed three singles on a fastball down the middle to Michael Conforto in the second inning, a sinker at the bottom of the zone to Mike Yastrzemski in the same frame and a slider out of the zone to Jung Hoo Lee in the sixth. It was in that latter frame when Priester ran into the most trouble. After retiring 11 straight batters from the second inning into the sixth, he allowed two baserunners to reach before striking out Jorge Soler and inducing a groundout to end his stellar outing. 

"He was really good. I mean, he was in control," Shelton said. "Had a little bit of traffic there in the sixth, but other than that, he attacked the zone. Went right after people. Execution of all four pitches. But yeah, really, really solid outing." 

Considered a weak point heading into spring training, the Pirates' starting rotation has served as a strength through the first month of the regular season. Jared Jones continues to produce at a high level early on in his big-league career, Bailey Falter is exceeding expectations with multiple efficient outings, Martin Perez has served as a valuable veteran presence within the group and Mitch Keller, the $77 million man, has had both encouraging and sluggish performances. Now two starts into a role replacing another valuable arm in Marco Gonzales, Priester has added his own strong pitching performance to a long list of ones displayed early on in the season. 

But, for this Pirates team, the issue doesn't revolve around its arms. The losses continue to pile up in large part due to the offense's inability to consistently provide run support, a problem that has now plagued them on more than a few occasions.

"We've pitched well. Our starting pitching's been good," Shelton said. "So yeah, we've got some work to do. We've got to figure this out."