A truly ugly, four-hour affair at PNC Park on Tuesday night was defined by the mutual pitching failures of two teams with vastly different expectations for the 2021 season.
But amongst all the walks, hit batsmen, wild pitches, mound visits and general ignorance of the strike zone, the Pirates succeeded at something offensively that should provide some very strong encouragement: They had four two-out, two-strike hits lead to runs in an 8-4 victory over the Padres.
Jacob Stallings’ first pair of knocks in the opening inning came on what could have been the final pitch of that inning, Kevin Newman added another in that situation in the third and Erik Gonzalez tacked on an insurance run in the eighth.
“Hitting with two strikes is not easy, especially with the arms in this league,” Stallings said. “Just quality at-bat after quality at-bat. Just staying in the approach and just trying to battle and wait for a mistake.”
It was a hopeful sign for a club that entered Tuesday night batting .210 with two outs and .146 when behind in the count as a team. The Pirates had seven hits in 15 at-bats with runners in scoring position.
“We’ve talked about times about being aggressive and putting the ball in play. We have to put the ball in play in those situations,” Derek Shelton said. “Today we put the ball in play, got some ground balls that got through. I think that’s extremely important. You extend innings out. We just had some big swings in big spots.”
Stallings led the way in the Pirates’ complete offensive effort, tallying three hits, a walk, three RBIs and a run scored. He recorded a double for the third consecutive game to improve to .333 on the season. After going 2 for 14 to open the year, Stallings is batting .500 (8 for 16) throughout a five-game hitting streak in which he’s collected five RBIs and scored four times.
“I just feel like my approach is good. I feel like after that Cincinnati series, I honed in on that approach and it’s working and putting me in a good position to hit and I’m on time,” he said. “Usually, when I’m in a good position and I’m on time, good things happen so it’s been nice, for sure.”
Stallings, a lifetime .300 hitter against lefties, was bumped a little higher in the lineup against the southpaw Blake Snell. After Chad Kuhl dug the Pirates into an early 2-0 hole in the opening inning, Stallings tied the game with a double over left fielder Tommy Pham.
Those instances of clutch hitting allowed Kuhl to survive one of the worst starts of his career.
“It feels like some days are hitting days and walking days and some days are pitching days,” Kuhl said. “It’s just how baseball works sometimes. … Guys worked great at-bats, and give all the credit to our guys for making him work and staying within their approach and doing everything they can to get those runs back.”
Gonzalez also delivered a pair of run scoring hits, the first of which scored Stallings in the first and nearly made it over the fence in left-center for a homer, on a three-hit night to improve to .241 this season. Newman and Bryan Reynolds both had a pair of hits while Phillip Evans was plunked twice and drew a walk.
MORE FROM THIS GAME
• The starting pitching in this game could not have been much worse. Actually, almost all of the pitchers in this game have seen better days.
Kuhl exited with a lead in the fourth inning but not before he could issue a career-high seven walks, complete with a hit batsman, a wild pitch and an errant pickoff throw that led to an unearned run. He was charged with four runs, three earned, on four hits while striking out one in 3 ⅔ innings.
“Well, the fix is in the strike zone. He's just really inconsistent with his timing,” Shelton said. “His arm slot tends to drift, and when that happens, you end up being rotational and you end up being out of the zone.”
Kuhl posted the rare negative strike-to-ball ratio with 47 of his 92 pitches missing the zone. The 28-year-old was not particularly effective with any of his four pitches and threw just eight of his 21 knuckle curves for strikes. Kuhl got the Padres to offer at 23 pitches and got just one swing and miss.
“I just wasn’t very sharp with the breaking balls,” Kuhl said. “Usually, they’re a go-to. I just kind of felt like the curveball was kind of popping, slider was kind of a ball out of the hand. I think that was the main part of it.”
It was an inauspicious start for Kuhl way back while the sun was still shining. Trent Grisham took him deep on the game’s fourth pitch and the Padres added another run and sent eight men to the plate in the opening inning. A comedy of errors -- even if it was just the one -- allowed Grisham to score again in the third without the Padres recording a hit.
Even with all that, Kuhl didn’t have the worst day at the office. The true nightmare was had by Snell.
While Kuhl didn’t have great command of his pitches, Snell looked as though he was throwing blindfolded.
He lasted just ⅔ of an inning and allowed three runs on as many hits with two walks and a hit batter. The 2018 AL Cy Young Award winner spiked a pitch into the ground that caught Anthony Alford in the ankle on a bounce and threw another to the concrete backstop hard enough to hold a runner at third on the ricochet.
Nabil Crismatt (0-1) took the loss but threw five innings of relief for San Diego, striking out five and allowing four runs, three earned.
• Clay Holmes took over for Kuhl with one out and runners at the corner after Eric Hosmer’s RBI single in the fourth inning. Holmes, Sam Howard, David Bednar, Chris Stratton (1-0), Kyle Crick and Rich Rodriguez were able to keep the Padres off the board the rest of the way after the fourth inning.
Crick was the beneficiary of a huge double play after two walks and a hit batsmen loaded the bases in the eighth inning, but Howard and Bednar also needed to be bailed out after allowing some traffic on the basepaths.
Stratton took the win and retired all three batters he faced, two via strikeout, after Bednar let two runners aboard without recording an out in the seventh. And Rodriguez gave this game what it so desperately needed: a clean ninth inning.
• There were 17 walks and seven bean balls -- some of which may or may not have been intentional -- between each side. But due to the efforts of the Pirates’ bullpen, only one team was able to take advantage of the free passes. San Diego drew 13 walks and suffered three hit batsmen but left 15 runners on base and went 1-for-13 with runners in scoring position.
Tuesday’s contest was the first in which the Pirates yielded 13 walks but still won since Aug. 25, 1979, which was a 19-inning contest against the Padres. The series-evening win also marked the first time a team was able to win despite issuing 16 combined walks and HBP since the St. Louis Browns in 1948 -- which was a team with a .386 win percentage.
• After recording a homer and a triple as a pinch hitter in his two previous at-bats before Tuesday night, Wilmer Difo went down swinging four times from the No. 2 spot in the order. He and Alford went 0-for-9 with seven strikeouts combined and were really the only members of the Pirates’ lineup that did not contribute offensively.
THE ESSENTIALS
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
Kevin Newman, SS
Wilmer Difo, CF
Bryan Reynolds, LF
Phillip Evans, 1B
Jacob Stallings, C
Erik Gonzalez, 3B
Adam Frazier, 2B
Anthony Alford, RF
Chad Kuhl, P
And for Jayce Tingler's Padres:
Trent Grisham, CF
Jake Cronenworth, SS
Manny Machado, 3B
Eric Hosmer, 1B
Wil Myers, RF
Tommy Pham, LF
Jurickson Profar, 2B
Luis Campusano, C
Blake Snell, P
THE SCHEDULE
The Pirates and Padres continue their series Wednesday night with a familiar face on the mound for San Diego. Tyler Anderson (0-2, 5.23 ERA) is scheduled to pitch against Joe Musgrove (2-0, 0.00 ERA) in the former Pirates' first appearance since throwing the first no-hitter in franchise history. First pitch is scheduled for 6:35 p.m.
THE CONTENT
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