The old baseball mantra goes that the best of teams will lose at least 50 games and the worst will win at least 50.
The Athletics may be challenging the latter half of that rule this season, but they certainly took care of the Pirates at PNC Park Tuesday night in an 11-2 thrashing, snapping the home team's six-game winning streak.
Perhaps most concerning of a blowout loss is that it was the Pirates' ace, Mitch Keller, on the mound. Keller had been shaky of late, allowing 10 runs in his last two outings, totaling 12 innings pitched, but he and Derek Shelton had brushed it off. It was really one bad start on a night where the ball was flying out in Seattle and one where he had the stuff but some bad batted ball luck.
This one couldn't be spun any other way: Keller was bad against a bad team. After walking just five hitters in his six May starts, he allowed four in his first June outing. That, paired with eight hits and 11 hard-hit balls against a team that entered the night last in baseball in OPS (.645).
“I just didn’t execute," Keller said. "It just comes down to execution. I left too many pitches over the middle and they took advantage. Obviously, with the free passes, it was just not a good night.”
Keller wasn't exaggerating: Every single hit he allowed on the night was over the middle of the plate:
There's another old rule in the sport that there are about five starts where everything works for a pitcher and another five when nothing does. One of those starts where nothing could go right just happened to come against a team that won its 13th game of the season on June 6.
Shelton and Keller talked through those last couple turns in the rotation, and unlike year's past, the conversations after a bad or middling outing were much more pleasant. Keller knew he had his stuff against the Giants, for example, so he didn't stress the loss. It had made those between start check-ins much easier and more pleasant for the manager. Keller thought the ball came out of his hand well Tuesday -- perhaps too well to the point that he got "too loose," he thought -- but three shaky starts is a trend. It could be just a blip on what recently looked like an All-Star caliber season, but it is still a trend.
"Tonight his breaking stuff wasn’t very sharp, so he didn’t get a ton of swing and misses," Shelton said. "On top of it, the fastball command was really inconsistent... He just didn’t pitch great tonight."
Meanwhile, the offense could hardly muster anything against James Kaprielian, who was 0-6 with an 8.12 before the game. He would go on to toss six innings with only two runs on his ledger, only one of them earned.
The Pirates had plenty of chances to score, but went 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position on the night. They were inconsistent in those run-scoring chances throughout May, but leaving nine men on base showed that they had plenty of chances to get ahead early.
And had they gotten those early runs, they surely would not have turned to Chase De Jong to close the game. The right-hander had his contract selected and was brought back to the majors Tuesday because the bullpen had been taxed over the weekend, and his first outing back may have been his worst of the year, where he allowed three two-run home runs over his two innings of work, a pair of which went to Jace Peterson, who entered the day batting below the Mendoza line.
"He missed a lot in the middle of the zone with the fastball," Shelton said. "I think every homer that was hit was a fastball in the middle of the plate. You can’t leave fastballs in the middle of the plate. It looked like the fastball didn’t have a ton of life on it today."
It was a night where bad met worse the entire game, and against a team where a first-place club would normally clean up. Instead, it's one the Pirates will just need to flush.
“You can’t look at the record," Keller said. "These are big league hitters, too. They’re still major league hitters. They’re good enough to be here for a reason. They took advantage of my mistakes tonight. That’s about it.”
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
• Scoreboard
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE INJURIES
• 15-day injured list: RHP Vince Velasquez (elbow)
• 60-day injured list: 1B Ji-Man Choi (Achilles), RHP Wil Crowe (shoulder), RHP JT Brubaker (elbow), SS Oneil Cruz (ankle), LHP Jarlin Garcia (elbow), RHP Max Kranick (elbow)
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
1. Tucupita Marcano, SS
2. Bryan Reynolds, LF
3. Andrew McCutchen, DH
4. Jack Suwinski, CF
5. Connor Joe, 1B
6. Josh Palacios, RF
7. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
8. Rodolfo Castro, 2B
9. Austin Hedges, C
And for Mark Kotsay's Athletics:
1. Esteury Ruiz, CF
2. Ryan Noda, 1B
3. Brent Rooker, DH
4. Seth Brown, RF
5. Aledmys Díaz, SS
6. JJ Bleday, LF
7. Shea Langeliers, C
8. Jace Peterson, 2B
9. Jonah Bride, 3B
THE SCHEDULE
The Pirates can still take the series and will take on the Athletics at 12:35 p.m. Wednesday. Roansy Contreras (3-4, 4.82) will try to right the ship against Hogan Harris (0-0, 6.97). DK will have you covered.
THE MULTIMEDIA
THE CONTENT