The Pirates had a chance to sweep a division rival on Sunday and instead lost in a brutal way with 18 strikeouts in a 5-0 loss. If you missed DiNardo and Jim on the NS9 Postgame Show powered by Primanti’s Bros, you can watch or listen to it below…
Here’s my 3 takeaways on this tough loss in Milwaukee…
You Can’t Strike Out 12 Times to Kyle Harrison
Look no disrespect to Brewers starter Kyle Harrison, he’s a fine MLB starting pitcher. He’s just not that good with the way the Pirates made him look Sunday. This was Harrison’s 42nd start of his MLB career on his third team and he had a career 4.28 ERA and 8.9 K/9 coming into this game. A fine Major League starter, but the Pirates made him look like Sandy Koufax Sunday. The Pirates had no answer for Harrison all game as he struck out 12 batters with just one walk and one hit in 6.0 innings of work. It wasn’t much better when the bullpen entered the game for the Brewers. Three Brewers relievers each struck out two for a grand total of 18 K’s today. That’s brutal.
On Thursday, Rangers starter Jacob deGrom struck out 10 Pirates in a 6-1 loss. That’s gonna happen. deGrom is one of the premier pitchers in the game over the past decade. No shame in struggling against him. Then on Saturday, Brewers starter Jacob Misiorowski struck out nine in a Pirates 6-3 extra-inning victory. Misiorowski is going to do that to you, he’s a great young starter and was a top prospect in the game. Again, that’s going to happen and the Pirates stayed in the game and ended up winning that one. This one though against Kyle Harrison and even the Brewers bullpen can’t happen. You can’t strike out 18 times in a game and only manage two hits. We’ve seen games like that a lot in recent years when the Pirates were running out a lot of non-Major Leaguers in their lineup. But the offense is significantly better this season. I didn’t think they had this kind of performance in them…not against a Kyle Harrison at least. It was a frustrating game from the offense. Hopefully it’s just a one off and the bats will bounce back like they have this month, but the strikeouts piling up this week is concerning a bit.
Two Moves that Would Make This Team Better Instantly IMO
Call up Hunter Barco for rotation, move Mlod to pen
I stated out of spring training that I felt Carmen Mlodzinski won the job for the 5th rotation spot and was fine giving him another shot at starting until Jared Jones was ready…but it’s just more of the same from Mlod. He struggled mightily again today after the third inning in which he was facing the order for a second time. And he looked great in the first three innings. He ended up giving up five runs (four earned) on five hits and a walk in just 3.2 innings. It’s his second consecutive very poor start and has now failed to go at least five innings in 4-of-his-6 starts this season. I’m done debating with folks if Mlod’s a starter or not or if he just needs more work in the rotation or not. My main thing at this point of where the Pirates are at and trying to compete, Mlod is more valuable as an elite 2-3 inning arm out of the pen. He would help upgrade that bullpen immensely and could be a real value. Barco has pitched better starting at Indy since going down…I say bring him up and let him start and see how he does at the Major League level already and Mlod can be the elite option out of the pen to go multiple innings if needed or he can be a one-inning RP to give you to Soto or Santana. Let him excel in that whichever role you need from him in the pen from any given day.
DFA Joey Bart, call up Endy or Flores.
I’m not sure what Joey Bart adds here to this team currently. It’s perfectly okay to have a catcher who can’t hit, but calls a good game and provides stellar defense. It’s not okay to have two catchers who can’t hit and one of them not even providing good defense. Bart’s catching leaves a lot to be desired, his calling of the game is suspect. The Pirates are 4-7 in games where Bart starts at catcher and they’re 12-5 in games that Henry Davis started. Bart’s one redeeming quality throughout his career was that he hits lefties…well not this season. He’s 3-for-20 against southpaws with 9 strikeouts. Just one extra-base hit and one walk. That’s a strikeout rate of 45%. That’s not gonna work. I don’t care who it is, Endy or Flores but call one of them up already and let’s cut bait here with Bart. That would be an instant upgrade with the bat and the defense at backup catcher.
A Sweep in Milwaukee Would Have Been Sweet
We had all the clichés going before this game—Pirates already won the series, they’re playing on house money, no big deal if you lose, etc, etc. And they are true…the Pirates took a road series against a divisional opponent in a place that they never do well so that’s good and they’re won three road series so far this season against the Reds, Cubs and Brewers. But man does it feel like they blew an opportunity to sweep this team, kick em when they’re down and keep that momentum going on the flight home to Pittsburgh for a four-game series with the Cardinals beginning Monday. It’s games like these that you look back at the end of the season that could have made the difference. A sweep here would have been huge. I don’t want to harp on it too much because the Pirates are 16-12 and playing well but a sweep would have been sweep. Just keep winning series and we’ll go from there.
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