Chris Archer's line Tuesday against the Rockies: 5.0 IP, six hits, four runs, three ER, three strikeouts, two walks, 92 pitches, 58 strikes.
Colorado starter German Marquez's line: 8.0 IP, three hits, zero runs, one walk, seven strikeouts on 28 batters faced.
Wanna guess who won the game?
Yeah, the Rockies won in a runaway, 5-0, Tuesday night at PNC Park to take a 1-0 lead in the three-game series. The scoring opened in perfect fashion. This game was not pretty for the Pirates, and it's all captured right here in a tidy 30-second clip:
Take it in: The failed pickle. Daniel Murphy's impish giggle as he crosses home plate. The score, no longer locked at zero. That, right there in the top of the second inning, was the game-winning run. It didn't get any better for the home team.
Archer struggled, giving up a home run in the following frame to Trevor Story. Bryan Reynolds almost had it at the wall — but he didn't.
Archer then walked two in the fourth before a sacrifice bunt from Marquez advanced the runners. Charlie Blackmon quickly added a two-run triple to bring 'em in. Even on Reynolds' near-snag, though, Archer wasn't making excuses. He knew he wasn't at his best, and he knew it cost his team a win.
"With the ball that went off Bryan’s glove, the dude hit it, like, a long ways," Archer said. "And you know, good pitchers get out of those situations. They minimize the damage. I was really close but came up a little short."
He did, and on consecutive walks — eight pitches total, mind you — he came up very short. Once again, Archer was quick to address it. But this time, he ended things with a positive spin:
This is what's expected, right? I mean, Dejan Kovacevic literally just wrote about how bizarre this team is, how they're winning despite all metrics saying they shouldn't. That they'd get blanked but keep their heads high and remain focused on tomorrow? That just makes sense.
But tonight, there were no heroics, there was no Starling Marte walkoff home run and no Josh Bell blast into the river to ignite the crowd. Tonight, the Pirates just fell flat, in part because of Marquez's brilliance and in part because of their own inability to make things happen.
That's baseball. It's a long season, as Clint Hurdle is fond of reminding us. Let's drill down into some specifics instead of focusing on that glaring 5-0 score on the jumbotron.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
THE GOOD
There wasn't good from the Pirates in this one, friends. There just wasn't. Chester Cheese was the night's best performer:
CHEESE CHESTER IS CLEARLY ON STEROIDS #dkps #pirates pic.twitter.com/FhSAlCJck6
— Hunter Alek Homistek (@HunterAHomistek) May 22, 2019
Marquez shut down the entire operation, so I went rogue in the locker room in pursuit of Joe Musgrove. Need a reminder of why you care about this team and why they're worthy of your support?
Listen to Musgrove talk about coffee. It's a lifelong passion of his, and it's one he's spread to his teammates inside the locker room:
There's your good. That's a dude speaking about something that matters to him, something away from the diamond and close to his heart.
THE BAD
The Pirates need Archer to be better. That's well documented above. They didn't hit the ball, but that happens when Marquez is Marquez.
I want to talk about this:
That's Jake Elmore dribbling one down the first-base line and hustling to get to the bag.
Marquez tags him out — or does he? Elmore immediately protested the call from the dirt, begging for an official review. He got it... and they still ruled him out.
Clint Hurdle went bananas and got ejected for it. But both men stood firm on their stances after the game.
"You’re never going to get an explanation, and you know that, but there comes a point in time where, as a manager, I just wanted to take a stand for the player," Hurdle said in his postgame press conference. "I had a couple looks. Obviously, they have more looks. I disagreed."
Ditto for Elmore:
The views from the press box are pretty, but they're not the best to see these finer details. That said, I haven't seen anything — including still shots from our own Matt Sunday — to make me think Elmore was out on this play.
Gotta get him with the ball... didn't look like he did, just the bare hand, but Elmore is out. #DKPS #Pirates pic.twitter.com/XJRn11mIc1
— Matt Sunday (@mattsunday) May 22, 2019
How can they bungle that?
THE OTHER SIDE
Let me reiterate Marquez's line: 8.0 IP, three hits, zero runs, one walk, seven strikeouts on 28 batters faced.
Oh, and he had an RBI single in the eighth inning.
That's a day, ladies and gentlemen.
"He's really good, first of all," Hurdle said. "I don't know if you followed him for a year or two, [but] the fastball's real, four-seamer. He can run it upper 90s. He can two-seam it down 94, 95. The breaking balls, both of them play. It's a slider and then a curveball that he'll throw. He's got a changeup and a cutter. He's got five pitches and probably used four of them in some type of sequence tonight.
"He's sharp. He's really tough on right-handed hitters. Our left-handers had better looks. We hit a couple balls hard for outs, but we weren't able to put anything together, string anything together against him."
THE DATA
• After being named NL Player of the Week, Bell went 0-for-4 against Marquez.
• Melky Cabrera got his 1,900th career hit last game against the Padres, and he got 1,901 tonight with a single off Marquez. He was just one of three Pirates — Reynolds and Francisco Cervelli the others — to get a hit.
• Reynolds, a lefty, had the most success at the plate against Marquez, going 1-for-2 with a double and two walks.
• Chris Stratton pitched the sixth, seventh and eighth innings, giving up four hits, one run and one earned run while tallying two walks and a strikeout.
• Time of game: Two hours, 41 minutes
• Tonight's attendance: 12,265.
THE INJURIES
• Gregory Polanco was originally in the starting lineup but pulled in favor of Reynolds before first pitch. He's nursing a left middle finger injury. Hurdle described him as "day to day."
• Cervelli left the game in the sixth inning with an "upper chest contusion." He'll be examined as well.
• Trevor Williams, right-hander, is on the 10-day IL with a right side strain.
• Jung Ho Kang, third baseman, is on the 10-day IL with a strained left side.
• Corey Dickerson, outfielder, is on the 10-day IL with a strained right shoulder. He is "making progress" and began throwing to bases, per Hurdle before today's game.
• Keone Kela, right-hander, is on the 10-day IL with right shoulder inflammation.
• Lonnie Chisenhall, outfielder, is on the 10-day IL with a broken right hand. He is on a rehab assignment with Class AAA Indianapolis.
• Jameson Taillon, right-hander, is on the 60-day IL with a strained right forearm flexor tendon.
• Erik Gonzalez, shortstop, is on the 60-day IL with a fractured right clavicle.
• Nick Burdi, relief pitcher, is on the 60-day IL with right elbow/biceps pain caused by a nerve problem.
THE SCHEDULE
The Pirates return tomorrow for Game 2 of this three-game series. I'll have the early coverage then kick things over to Dejan Kovacevic for the live updates and the game report.
THE COVERAGE
All our expanded baseball coverage, including Indy Watch by Matt Welch, Altoona Watch by Jarrod Prugar, and Mound Visit by Jason Rollison, can be found on our team page.
MATT SUNDAY GALLERY
Pirates vs. Rockies, PNC Park, May 21, 2019 - MATT SUNDAY / DKPS