CHRISTOPHER PANSINO – OVATHLETICS.COM
The Pirates have many fundamental problems with their team throughout their 18 losing seasons and at no point do they assemble all the pieces of the puzzle to build a winning team. For the longest period the Pirates had good starting pitching, but more often then not the bullpen would come in and lose the game. This season saw improved bullpen play to the point the Pirates had one of the better bullpens in the major’s leagues. That of course changed after the trade deadline for the worse.
But the starting pitching, though bad, has not been the big problem this season. The big problem has revolved around hitting and fielding. Hitting has kept the Pirates out of countless games this season. It goes much further than the one in every three nights statistic as well.
But fielding has its place in this argument as well where innings that should end after three or four batters turn into multi-run six and seven batter innings after just one error. Great teams make you pay for every mistake, but even average teams are making the Pirates pay this season.
The Nationals scored 7 of 8 runs as a product of three Pirate errors Sunday night.
In the first inning the Nationals would score on after a throwing error from pitcher Charlie Morton trying to pickoff Nyjer Morgan gave him second base. Morgan would score after being bunted over to third.
The big game changing inning came in the top of the fourth as a fielding error by first baseman Garrett Jones allowed a run to score and put men on first and second with no outs. A total of ten batters would come to the plate and score five runs in the process.
But the problems did not stop there. A third error in the sixth inning would allow an additional two runs to score. The error, this time by third baseman Pedro Alvarez, came with two outs and would allow the inning to continue. Nyjer Morgan and Ian Desmond would score before the final out was recorded in the inning.
And thought the Pirates had as many hits as the Nationals in this game, 11, they only scored a single run.
The lone run came off of a solo homer by Alvarez to lead off the bottom of the fourth inning. The hit was the only hit the third baseman saw all day.
Today’s game was interesting in that the two teams combined for four errors. The same result happened on Saturday night, but with different results. The Nationals had the three errors on Saturday, but still managed to come out with the 9-2 win proving that fielding isn’t everything.
The Pirates continue their home series tomorrow with the first place NL east Atlanta Braves.
