SAN FRANCISCO -- If you missed the Pirates' 5-3 loss to the Giants at Oracle Park Friday, you had already watched it before. Probably multiple times over the course of the season.
Consider it a sampler of the greatest hits of all the talking points we have been addressing all season. There were opportunities to win and the Pirates were once again close, with Friday's game being the 68th they have played this season decided by one or two runs, the most in baseball.
But falling short in those games more regularly than not gets frustrating too, especially when it's the same shortcomings routinely poking its head.
"It's nice to be competitive," Greg Allen said, "but one time or another we're going to have to start winning these games."
Allen homered as part of a multi-hit night, but failed to come through in the biggest moment of the game with the bases loaded and one out in a one-run game in the eighth. After he struck out, Tucupita Marcano bounced softly to short. That wasted the last rally of the Pirates’ night, which started with hits from Josh VanMeter and Ben Gamel before Rodolfo Castro failed to advance the runners on a bunt attempt and Oneil Cruz walked.
"I think they made a really good baseball play on the bunt,” Derek Shelton said on the decision to bunt Castro, who had homered and tripled to that point in the game.
Talking about the inning as a whole, Shelton said, “we have to get at least one there."
The Pirates, who entered the day with an MLB-worst .210 batting average when there’s a runner in scoring position, went 0-for-9 in those situations Friday.
“Just got to do a better job of putting the ball in play,” Allen said about his at-bat in the eighth.
“Just have to give us a better chance of at least cashing in one there and tie that game up. That's all that is. That's on me as a player.”
Those missed opportunities stung more when paired with the extra outs the Pirates gave the Giants in the field. In the fifth, Mike Yastrzemski hit what appeared to be a routine two-out fly ball to center, but the swinling bay winds knocked it down and Bryan Reynolds stumbled at the edge of the warning track, giving the Giants a free run.
That came two innings after Yastzemski picked up his first RBI when first baseman Michael Chavis short-hopped a throw home with the bases loaded, failing to get the force at the plate:
"If the ball's hit right to him, you can go home,” Shelton said. But as soon as he has to break and go a different way, we almost have to just get an out in that situation.”
Pitching? Bryse Wilson, one of four members of what is supposed to be a five-man rotation, had been pitching well of late but regressed to his earlier season form, allowing four earned runs over 5 ⅓ innings because the Giants hunted fastballs early in counts and his slider didn’t have as much velocity.
It was the Pirates’ 68th loss of the season, but one that took bits and pieces of plenty of the previous 67. And at 45-68 now on the season, they are on pace for 64.5 wins on the season, which is dangerously close to another 100 loss season. The only time in franchise history where they had consecutive seasons of triple-digit losses was 1952-54.
For a team that’s striving to get better, falling into the same pitfalls does not give a good benchmark of that potential improvement.
Because, to repeat, you saw Friday’s game before.
MORE FROM THE GAME
• The Pirates lost one of their most promising young pitchers for the rest of the season Friday when they placed Yerry De Los Santos on the 60-day injured list with a lat strain.
Talking to reporters Friday, De Los Santos said he knew something didn't fee quite right
"I started feeling a little tightness, just something that was pulling on me," De Los Santos said through interpreter Mike Gonzalez. "But I just kept trying to stretch, push through. When I went to pitch, it was never pain. It was like something was there tugging, just tight."
Looking at a potential timeline to get back, it just didn't look feasible to get him back before the end of the season, so the Pirates opted to wrap his season.
De Los Santos was uncharacteristically erratic in his final outing of the season Thursday, failing to retire a batter. That rose his season ERA to 4.91 over 25 2/3 innings, but that doesn't reflect the quality of the pitching he did in his rookie year, which included some leverage opportunities that he generally did well in.
“I think we saw him grow from the time that he joined us,” Shelton said. “We saw so many positive things, and when we talked to him today, those were the things we highlighted. Those were the things we want him to go into the winter on. Moreso the fact, with a young player, appreciate how he went about describing where he was at and how he felt. It's really important how these guys communicate.”
So what is there to take away from that rookie season?
"I learned so many things throughout this season," De Los Santos said. "More than anything, just how hitters at this level are different. Every hitter is different. How to attack hitters, the planning, the speed of the game, how important it is to make sure that you’re constantly learning because the game is growing — there’s constantly things changing and happening. Learning to ask for advice or people’s inputs, my teammates, just learning from them. I learned so many things. These are things that I’m going to take with me going into the offseason, get healthy, get better and come back next season fully healthy and ready to help this team win."
• Austin Brice, who had been traveling with the team as a member of the taxi squad, had his contract selected Friday to take De Los Santos' roster spot. He allowed one run on two walks, a hit and a pair of strikeouts in the eighth inning.
• Ok, one positive from this game: Castro has been hitting well since his promotion, including his homer and triple performance Friday. Games like that help put the cell phone incident a little further away from the public's focus.
• Ke'Bryan Hayes was out of the lineup with back spasms, stemming back from his final swing of Thursday's loss to the Diamondbacks. Hayes finished that game in the field, but felt worse Friday. Shelton said pregame that he is considered day-to-day.
• Factoid of the game: Allen is the 21st different Pirate to homer this season. The only Pirates teams that had more individual players homer were 2021, 2001 and 1953 with 23, and 2000 with 22.
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
• Scoreboard
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE INJURIES
• 10-day injured list: C Tyler Heineman (right groin strain)
• 15-day injured list: RHP David Bednar (low back), LHP Dillon Peters (left elbow inflammation)
• 60-day injured list: RHP Yerry De Los Santos (lat), OF Canaan Njigba-Smith (wrist), RHP Blake Cederlind (UCL), RHP Nick Mears (elbow), RHP Max Kranick (elbow), C Roberto Pérez (hamstring)
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
1. Kevin Newman, 2B
2. Bryan Reynolds, CF
3. Michael Chavis, 1B
4. Ben Gamel, RF
5. Rodolfo Castro, 3B
6. Oneil Cruz, SS
7. Greg Allen, DH
8. Tucupita Marcano, LF
9. Jason Delay, C
And for Gabe Kappler's Giants:
1. Joc Pederson, LF
2. Brandon Belt, 1B
3. Wilmer Flores, 3B
4. Mike Yaastrzemski, RF
5. Brandon Crawford, SS
6. Thairo Estrada, 2B
7. LaMonte Wade Jr., DH
8. Luis Gonzalez, LF
9. Austin Wynns, C
THE SCHEDULE
The Giants will celebrate the 2012 World Series winning team (including former Pirates Ryan Vogelsong, Xavier Nady and George Kontos) before Saturday's contest. Tyler Beede (1-1, 3.57) will be the first pitcher in another bullpen game, facing Logan Webb (10-5, 3.17). First pitch is at 9:05 p.m. Eastern.
THE CONTENT
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