The Pirates spotted the Yankees a 4-0 lead thanks to some poor defense, then scored five to take a lead only to give it right back for an 8-5 loss in the opening game against the Yankees. Braxton Ashcraft was hit early and often and only went three innings with nine hits, eight runs (seven earned). Esmerlyn Valdez hit his 13th home run which was a two-run bomb to continue his torrid start to his career. Tyler and Cody recap this one on the NS9 Postgame Show powered by Primanti Bros. You can watch/listen here:

Here’s my three takeaways from this one…

Defense Reared Its Ugly Head Again

Just when the Pirates were getting on a little bit of a roll and folks said how well the defense played in Cleveland, the bad defense reared its ugly head early in Yankee Stadium. In the bottom of the 1st inning with one out, Ashcraft walked Ben Rice and then got Paul Goldschmidt to ground to third base. Instead of a double play, Nick Gonzales wasn’t able to hone in the ball and it bounced off his glove and into the outfield. Bryan Reynolds runs in, gets the ball and goes to throw home and he spikes it straight into the ground. Rice scores and it’s 1-0 Yankees. Two errors on the same play, and they were costly what from what happened next. Cody Bellinger singles to put two on at the corners and then Jazz Chisholm Jr. takes Ashcraft deep to make it 4-0 in a hurry. Instead of a double play and scoreless first inning, it’s 4-0 Yankees. The bad defense showed up in this one and you can’t give teams like the Yankees additional chances.

Are We Worried About Ashcraft?

Braxton Ashcraft was the Pirates the best pitcher in the first half, but since June 6, his ERA was 4.89 couple into Monday’s game and he’s had a couple clunkers in there in between some good starts. Monday night was his first start of the second half and he was rocked with eight runs (seven earned) in just 3.0 innings of work. He gave up a second home run to Jazz in the 3rd inning to give up the lead back to the Yankees after the Pirates took the lead 5-4. I saw a lot of folks on Twitter saying Ashcraft is reaching his innings high for his career and he’s been bad over the past month and needs a phantom IL stint. Are we worried about him right now?

I’m not there yet with him thinking he needs a skipped start or IL stint. This was his first outing in nine days so he just had a rest for the ASB and didn’t pitch at the All-Star game. So he basically already had a skip start and a brief rest. His velocity isn’t really down. Tyler said on the postgame show that Ashcraft seems to struggle when he’s thrown off his routine of pitching every fifth day like this start was after a big break. I’m hoping that’s all it is. We’ll see next start as he settles back into his routine. I think Ashcraft will be fine. He wasn’t good in this game, but if Gonzales makes that play and turns two, Ashcraft’s line only gives up four and probably goes longer but we’ll see how he responds in his next start which will be in the homestand coming up.

Dotel Is Back!

Well, well, well…Wilber Dotel looks to be back. Dotel only gave up two earned runs in his first 16.2 Major League innings and then gave up 10 earned runs in his next 1.2 innings and then landed on the IL. He returned in this game and shut the Yankees down for three innings. Dotel struck out five batters in three electric scoreless innings with just one hit allowed and no walks. He came into the game in the 4th inning and struck out Goldschmidt, Bellinger and Jazz 1-2-3. Welcome back, Wilber! That sure is one way to return to the Majors. This outing from him was great to see after his two struggling games before going on the IL. It looks like those last 1.2 innings, he was likely already injured and trying to pitch through it and it effected him. Hopefully he is healthy and back to his dominant ways because what a boon that would be for this bullpen. We’ll take production in this bullpen from anywhere we can get it. And if Dotel is back and striking out five in three relief innings at Yankee Stadium, let’s go. We will take that all day.