OAKLAND, Calif. -- The Pirates concluded their six-game West Coast trip in the same way they started it: By squandering scoring opportunities, failing to capitalize on a quality start by Quinn Priester and finishing with a goose egg in the run column.
Priester allowed three runs (two earned) in six innings to keep the Pirates within reach, but the bats remained cold in a four-hit performance and a 4-0 loss to the Athletics inside the Oakland Coliseum Wednesday afternoon. Losers of four straight games and five of six during their visit to the Bay Area, the Pirates have now been swept three times during a stretch in which they've lost 16 of 21 games.
Their latest setback was eerily similar to the first of this trip -- a 3-0 loss to the Giants that featured 11 runners left on base and three key scoring opportunities that went wasted. This time around, the Pirates left 10 baserunners stranded, including three that were left standing 90 feet away from home plate, and couldn't take advantage of three Oakland errors.
"I think the whole culmination for us this series is we didn't get big hits when we needed to," Derek Shelton said. "I think the last two days we had opportunities. The first game here we didn't have a ton of opportunities, but the last two games, we had opportunities to break it open, give us the lead, tie the game, and we just didn't do that."
While the A's scored their runs on early solo homers by Abraham Toro and Tyler Nevin, a fifth-inning error by Oneil Cruz and an eighth-inning single by Kyle McCann, the Pirates weren't as advantageous.
There were more than a few examples of this, especially with two outs in an inning:
• Second inning: They had runners on the corners with two outs after a single by Rowdy Tellez and a throwing error by Nevin allowed Jared Triolo to reach, but a lineout off the bat of Jack Suwinski ended the threat.
• Third: A two-out double by Bryan Reynolds was followed by a flyout to center by Connor Joe.
• Fourth: Cruz led off with a single, moved to second on a groundout and then went to third on an errant pickoff throw by Oakland starter Ross Stripling. Tellez followed with a chopper to shortstop Darell Hernaiz, who delivered a throw home to nail Cruz trying to score.
• Seventh: A single by Triolo and two-out walks to Henry Davis and Ke'Bryan Hayes loaded the bases for Reynolds, who couldn't come through in two bases-loaded situations during the series in San Francisco. This time, he was ahead 3-0 before eventually going down swinging on a 3-2 slider from Austin Adams.
"It doesn't matter who it is, we have to get a big two-out hit," Shelton said. "We had opportunities today, we had opportunities last night. We're not getting it right now, so we've got to keep going, have a ball fall and go from there."
But why has getting clutch hits with two outs been such a struggle?
"I wish I had the answer to that. If I had the answer to that, it would be a lot easier conversation," Shelton said. "But right now, we need to keep grinding and we have to figure out a way to get that two-out hit."
The offensive outage on display in San Francisco and Oakland provided legitimate issues for a team that benefitted from solid starting pitching through six games, including three quality starts -- two from Priester -- to push the rotation's season total to 14 on the year.
In its last six games, the offense was limited to two or less runs on five occasions. The collective unit finished with nine total runs, went 2 for 36 with runners in scoring position and left a total of 46 runners on base.
"Baseball's difficult as it is, so obviously when you're not doing what you want out there on the field and not getting the results that you're looking for, hoping for, then it becomes a little more challenging for you," Andrew McCutchen said. "Difficult? No. Challenging? Yes. But, you just got to shake out of it. Just as well as you lose them, you can turn around and win however many games, too. It's contagious. So, just got to get on the winning side of things again. Get the ball rolling. I'm confident that this club can do that."
The Pirates' collective struggles at the plate have extended further than just this road trip. Over the last 21 games, the offense has posted a collective .199/.281/.290 slash line with a .571 OPS. Of their 135 hits, 102 of them have been singles. They've walked 76 times and compiled a whopping 191 strikeouts. That's 9.1 strikeouts per game for a team that has struck out 300 times this season, the fourth-highest total among major-league teams.
While things have certainly began to spiral as of late, players like Hayes, Tellez and Joe have recently displayed confidence in the group's ability to right the ship. Add McCutchen to that list, too.
"This club's gone through it. This isn't anything new. Hate to say that, but it's something that we've experienced. We experienced it last year. It's just things are a little more intensified when you have the start that you have, right? We had the start that we had last year, and then that happened. Now this year, had a start, now this has happened. So, it's all intensified," McCutchen said. "It'd be one thing if it didn't happen that way, but it did. So, it makes things bigger than what they actually are. Shouldn't be stressing over the stretch that we're on. We got a lot of ballgames left. We got a lot of games to play. We just got to stay positive that way, knowing that we can easily turn this thing around. Just can't let it get away from us."
