SAN FRANCISCO -- After Thairo Estrada drove Wil Crowe's sinker to left-center and rounded the bases at Oracle Park Sunday, the Pirates concluded what will go down as one of their most frustrating series and road trips of the season.
That walkoff homer was the final swing of an 8-7 loss to the Giants, concluding a 2-8 road trip where the Pirates were often in the game, but often fell short.
It's a point that has been brought up many times. The frequency of being close doesn't do much to quell those frustrations.
“When you don’t win games, it’s hard on everybody," Ben Cherington said on his 93.7 The Fan radio show before the game Sunday. "It’s hard on players. It’s hard on staff, fans, everybody. We just have to keep at it everyday so that we can get to more winning as fast as we possibly can.”
“We understand, going into this offseason, that one of the ways we get better is identifying the areas on the team that, maybe we wouldn’t call a ‘black hole,’ but we aren’t getting enough production from this spot,” Cherington said later. “And that’s on us in baseball operations to find a way to solve that going into next year.”
Looking at the Pirates' lineup, there are clear areas of need. To focus solely on offense for a moment, according to Stathead, the Pirates rank in the bottom four in baseball in OPS among catchers (.552 before Sunday's game, 28th in baseball), first base (.640, 27th), shortstop (.592, 29th) and right field (.597, 28th). The only position where their ranking is higher than 18th was center field (.740, 10th). Every other position has yielded below-average to terrible results compared to other teams.
On the pitching side, well, you can never have too much pitching, especially for a team that's been operating with just four starters since trading José Quintana at the beginning of the month.
Of course, not all of those positions will be addressed this offseason, and nor should they. Shortstop has been manned by Oneil Cruz of late, and while he has had his bumps in the majors, he is one of the most exciting young players to come through the system in years.
While talking about ways to improve the roster, Cherington said he feels the Pirates can been more "narrowly targeted" in acquiring players this winter. With the exception of this year's first-round draft pick Termarr Johnson, six of the Pirates' top seven prospects on Baseball America's top 30 list are at Class AA Altoona or Class AAA Indianapolis. Many will likely reach the majors next year. That means the Pirates have a better scope of who could be contributing to that team, so they look more closely at areas of need.
And while bringing up young players not give immediate success, the Pirates can at least look at the other teams they faced on this road trip as a roadmap of how to improve. The Orioles and Diamondbacks had the two worst records in baseball last year. The former could potentially shock the world and make the playoffs this year. The Diamondbacks are fairly close to .500 despite playing in one of the toughest divisions in baseball.
“There’s an opportunity [because] we have a lot of that young talent that a lot of teams have," Cherington said. "It is reassuring that it’s making its transition to the major leagues right now. Transitions to the major leagues are not always easy.”
Shortly after the trade deadline passed, Cherington brought up the word "urgency" several times in his availability with local media, saying that needs to be the attitude the franchise needs to take towards getting better. Close games can be an indicator of that...
"You saw the fight out of our club today," Derek Shelton said. They continued to go. They continued to battle. It’s just with a young group, we have to make sure that we execute plays and finish plays. It’s something we have to get better at."
But so are wins. Those have been much harder to come by.
MORE FROM THE GAME
• Bryan Reynolds had himself a ball game and came close to carrying his team to victory.
After falling behind 5-0 with Zach Thompson on the bump, Reynolds snapped a team streak of 20 hitless at-bats with a runner in scoring position this series with a two-run double. In the seventh, he put the Pirates out in front with a 442-foot shot to right-center, the longest at Oracle Park this season:
Reynolds would also score the go-ahead run in the ninth on a Rodolfo Castro infield single and Evan Longoria error, giving him five RBIs and three runs scored on the day.
"He's an All-Star for a reason," Crowe said. "He's our best player for a reason. He's dynamic. He's electric. He's Bryan Reynolds. When he goes, we go, and he's a great player, and we all know that."
Reynolds' results had been sluggish since he had been activated off the injured list at the end of July, but he has shown in the past that it just takes a game like the one he had Sunday to get back on track quickly.
"Everybody likes to hit well," Reynolds said. "Nobody likes to suck. Getting some balls on the barrel feels good."
• Alas, that home run:
Crowe's sinker has been one of best pitches this season, but Estrada was able to drive his final one of the afternoon out.
"I think sinkers to Estrada, over 80% ground ball [rate]," Crowe said about the pitch and why he threw it. "He jumped me. That's what happened. Wasn't like I threw a middle-middle. Just he hit a quality pitch and put a good swing on it. The results are what they are."
Estrada's shot would have been just a game-tying homer had the Pirates converted either one of a pair routine plays. The first was the play before, where second baseman Josh VanMeter did not get much on the unnecessary backhand flip to shortstop Oneil Cruz, resulting in just a force play rather than a double play:
"I think as far away as he is, he’s probably gotta drop-step there and give a stronger throw there," Shelton said.
In the bottom of the seventh, Brandon Crawford hit what appeared to be an inning-ending pop up, but Cruz and Kevin Newman could not hear each other and the ball would end up dropping in behind them:
As a result, another run would come in, tying the game late.
"That’s a ball we have to catch," Shelton said.
Newman was charged with the error.
• Sound off with the answers to the "how do you bounce back from this road trip" questions.
Crowe: "Just got to keep going. We have an off-day tomorrow. Everybody will get back, get some sleep, get some rest, some family time and then we'll get back at it on Tuesday. It's what we're here to do. Come to the ballpark, trying to win our game and just try to do it. It's behind us. There's nothing we can do about it now. You just move on, and that's what we've got to do. That's what we'll do."
Shelton: "We got the off-day tomorrow. We just have to get home and play better when we get home. We had some opportunities throughout this whole trip that we did not execute on, and we have to execute better."
Reynolds: "we've got an off-day tomorrow, with a long flight to forget about it and just come back Tuesday ready to go."
• The game, in a graph:
— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) August 14, 2022
• More from Cherington before the game: It sure sounds like Roansy Contreras will be back in the majors sooner rather than later, with Cherington saying that he's "checked the boxes" that they set forth for him whenever he was optioned back to the minors for his planned midseason shutdown.
It also sounds like we should expect Jack Suwinski and Diego Castillo to return to the majors before the season is through. He said Suwinski had been working on some adjustments to improve his fastball timing.
And there has been no follow up from Major League Baseball on Rodolfo Castro's phone incident in Phoenix. Don't expect a fine or punishment.
• The Pirates are now 45-70. Their .391 winning percentage puts them on pace for a 63-99 record. They need to go 18-29 down the stretch to avoid a second-straight 100-loss season.
• Factoid of the game: The Pirates' pinch-hitters are now batting .155 with a .485 OPS over 106 plate appearances this season.
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, DH
3. Michael Chavis, 1B
4. Ben Gamel, RF
5. Rodolfo Castro, 3B
6. Oneil Cruz, SS
7. Greg Allen, CF
8. Tucupita Marcano, LF
9. Jason Delay, C
And for Gabe Kappler's Giants:
1. LaMonte Wade Jr., DH
2. Joc Pederson, LF
3. Wilmer Flores, 3B
4. Brandon Belt, 1B
5. Mike Yastrzemski, CF
6. Thairo Estrada, 2B
7. Brandon Crawford, SS
8. Tommy La Stella, DH
9. Joey Bart, C
THE SCHEDULE
Thus concludes the road trip. The Red Sox are coming to town for a three-game series starting Tuesday. Mitch Keller (4-8, 4.25) will take on Nick Pivetta (8-9, 4.51) at 7:05 p.m. I'm handing the ball over to DK for that one.
THE CONTENT
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