S T. LOUIS – See that picture up there?
That’s. That is the column.
And that, for anyone who saved most of the Pirates 9-1 The Cardinals’ burial Saturday at Busch Stadium was the third-string catcher who made a full-base walk in the second inning to account for all of the offense this afternoon.
Here is the complete sequence:
• Josh bell he snapped.
• Colin Moran he snapped.
• Phillip Evans He was hit by a pitch to load the bases with no one.
• Guillermo Heredia, who would have to go a long way to see the plate worse than in the first game the night before, he did it by watching a Adam Wainwright The 91.3 mph fastball paints the outer corner, this after turning through a hanging curve just down Market Street.
• It is then that John Ryan Murphy, the aforementioned third-string receiver and owner of a .220 running average, worked that hike to take Bell home. That tied the score at 1-1.
• I will pause here for a mandatory courtship.
• Cole Tucker He enters the box, having seen a future Hall of Famer feel the least heat possible, no doubt fully aware that he could apply more … but instead, awkwardly awkward on the first pitch he saw, with a cutter entering your hands, well out of the area …
… and appeared shortly:
That’s not good. And it’s the main reason why I’m constantly warning against raising expectations for Tucker. Until I can hit the big guys, there shouldn’t be any.
• Back to the beginning of the order, Kevin Newman he takes a much smarter approach, advances 2-1, receives an absolutely horrible second attack summoned against him by Ed Hickox, then he is forced to swing his zone and falls short.
End of entry.
End of the game, really.
End of season?
No, I will not go there. That would be strange, no matter how many you bet on accepting any such statement.
But I’ll say this: Pirates are not just 0-2 right now. They are 0-5.4.
It only takes a few taps of the calculator to see that, in Major League Baseball’s 60-game season, each game is about 2.7 on the standard 162-game schedule. It is almost as if each game is a series in itself. And even with 16 teams making the expanded playoffs instead of 10, that makes every one of these events – that is, every game, every rally, every pitch – critical in an unprecedented way.
So here’s the news: if the Pirates lose on Sunday and are swept away, it’ll be 0-3, or 0-8.1 in the old math, and I don’t see anything more like hope than it would for a start. 0-8 ordinary.
Any additional pressure already?
“It’s two games. Let’s not go crazy” Derek Shelton He responded to that by being addressed later in his Zoom call with reporters. “You cannot react with anything. I think you have known me well enough to know that I am not reactionary in any way.”
That is plausible. It is as easy as it sounds, smiling effortlessly every day.
But then there was Trevor williams, the starter of the day, after a disappointing line of 3 2/3 innings of three runs, five hits, a Paul Goldschmidt home run that has yet to land, and a 67-pitch count to record 11 outs.
I asked him how it felt to be alone on the mound, pitching healthy and angry for the first time since early last summer, and he replied, “It was good to know it was time to go. It was good to know these games count. It seemed like this beginning It counted like four … three or four starts. I came in like I had to prepare more than usual. I felt like I had to be especially prepared for this start. “
Now later in the conversation, when new pressure arose, he replied, “We are waiting for every opportunity. We know those victories will come. And when the victories come, it will count as three or four.” It’s one of those places where we go to the patio every day hungry … As for the pressure, if we push ourselves too hard, I don’t see it that way. “
Maybe you are right. Maybe the Pirates are not giving in as much as they are just being mean. But make no mistake: any scenario is serious for anyone who takes the season seriously, as I am sure these players are. They are too close to proceed otherwise, regardless of the perception from the outside.
Because of that, I can’t help but feel like it’s already magnified that the team is hitting .169 with two total walks. That there has been an extra-base hit, a double by Moran in the first game. That there were three miserable bachelors on this day. That the top three in the order – Newman, Bryan Reynolds, Adam Frazier – they are a combined 2 for 23. That the last three in the order have somehow been even worse. That the pitchers have a 5.63 and have served four homers. That there have been two official errors, plus another four fielding errors according to my account.
The top of the order has me more upset than any of them, to be frank. This part was not optional. This was supposed to be the given. But when even Reynolds, the most trusted player in the lineup, goes 0-7 and doesn’t reach the base until a hike in his last plate appearance on Saturday, that puts everything in a different light.
I ran this past Shelton and in doing so I wrongly referred to these two games here as representing 1/15 of the season. To which he replied playfully, “First, please, you never asked me to do math. I told you I was bad at fourth grade math, so if we are doing fractions, I won’t be good at it.”
Turning in a straight line, he essentially reiterated, “It’s two games. You can magnify it because it’s a shorter season. But more importantly, these guys are going to hit. They’ll have better at-bats. We just have to put our feet on the floor and get on going “.
Well, they have the walk down part.
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