The Pirates starting pitching failed them for a second straight game as Braxton Ashcraft was hit around for six runs in five innings in a 6-3 loss to the Braves. The Braves jumped on Ashcraft early in this one scoring two in the 1st inning and then adding on a third run in the 3rd inning to make it 3-0, but the Pirates offense battled back and tied it at 3-3. Ashcraft went out for the 5th inning and gave up another three runs to sink the Pirates. The Pirates couldn’t just lose and call it a day either…Brandon Lowe left the game in the 9th inning after fouling a pitch off his knee and needed help getting off the field. Jim and Tyler broke this one down on the NS9 Postgame Show powered by Primanti’s Bros. You can watch or listen here:
Here’s my 3 takeaways from this one…
Do the Pirates Have a Stopper Right Now?
It’s a funny question to ask when the team you cheer for has Paul Skenes on the active roster, but Skenes hasn’t really been the stopper for this team in the past month. Skenes hasn’t pitched six full innings in nearly a month (May 12). Mitch Keller has been really struggling over his last five starts, Bubba Chandler has struggled for most of the year and now even Braxton Ashcraft couldn’t right the ship and put up some zeros and go deep into the game to settle things down.
While the offense has been top 5 offense across MLB, your supposed strength of the team starting pitcher, is starting to trend downward. And don’t get me wrong, Ashcraft has been really good this season so far, he just fell in line with the other starters this week and was rocked for six runs on nine hits and only went five innings. On Sunday, Bubba Chandler will get a shot at being the stopper and trying to avoid a sweep to the Braves. And I don’t know if the starters are tired or you need to start skipping starts and limiting innings, but I know one thing—it’s time for pitching coach Bill Murphy to figure things out and help his pitchers made strides forward not two steps backward. Murphy was hired in the offseason and heralded as this pitching guru from the Astros, but everyone (especially the bullpen) has regressed besides Ashcraft.
Losing Lowe for a Long Period of Time Would Hurt
No injury is a good thing or something anyone wants to see, but losing Brandon Lowe for an extended period of time would be brutal for this offense. Lowe is the cog that’s been rolling for this team and was the pickup of the offseason maybe in the whole MLB. Lowe is leading the team in home runs and OPS+ and has been a steady defender at second. He fouled a pitch off his knee and struggled to put any weight on it and needed assistance to leave the field. Here’s the video from it:
Again it doesn’t look promising, but we don’t know how severe it is and might not know till Sunday. But losing Lowe for a significant period would obviously hurt. Ryan O’Hearn missed a couple weeks, but came back strong but losing Lowe for longer could be a game changer for this team. Someone will need to step up, or maybe the pitching could all step up and help settled things down.
Pirates Aren’t There Yet with the Top Teams
The Braves look like a lock for the postseason. They’re now 44-21, 9.5 games up on the Phillies in the NL East and there doesn’t appear to be many weaknesses on this team. Losing to the Braves isn’t the end of the world for the Pirates, but it’s showing that they’re just not quite there yet. That is no more evident than when looking at each team’s bullpen. The Pirates bullpen we know is a mess. Meanwhile the Braves are firing a bunch of dudes sporting sub-2 ERA’s. Both games so far this series the Pirates scored their three runs off Atlanta’s starters, but the Braves bullpen has been nearly lights out. Raisel Iglesias nailed down two saves each of these games and then there’s Dylan Lee and Dylan Dodd and young phenom Didier Fuentes and Robert Suarez…it’s an embarrassment of riches. If the Pirates had this bullpen, they might be 44-21 themselves but they don’t…we have to watch them try and piece together a bullpen and hang on until the deadline.
We’ll see if the Pirates can avoid the sweep Sunday in Atlanta, win the next one and you salvage a game in the series and go .500 for the roadtrip and all is not lost. But after the off day Monday they come home to face the Dodgers so it’s not going to get any easier for them. These two series are big tests for the Pirates and right now, they’re failing them.
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