LOS ANGELES -- Forgive Jack Suwinski and Andy Haines if they were frustrated with the call. The Pirates had seen this happen 306 times this year.
Down in the seventh inning and on the way to 5-2 loss to the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium Thursday, Suwinski took a Nick Robertson changeup at the knees. It was definitely borderline, but pitch tracking did have it in the strike zone. Home plate umpire John Libka called it a strike and rung up Suwinski.
Suwinski disagreed, and while things didn't get too tempered between the player and umpire, the mild-mannered outfielder did have a few words and some glares for Libka:
"I think that's the first time I've seen Jack react to anything in two years," Derek Shelton said.
"I wouldn't say I was really that hot," Suwinski said. "I wasn't yelling or nothing. I just thought it was down."
Instead, the guy who got hot was the hitting coach Haines, who was tossed from the dugout and then went out to Libka to get his money's worth before hitting the showers:
"The guy called a bad pitch," Carlos Santana was telling me.
It was a borderline call that didn't go the Pirates' way. There were plenty of those calls throughout the game. Dodgers catcher Austin Barnes has been regarded as a plus pitch framer for years, and he seemed to help snag a couple calls in the Dodgers' favor Thursday:
That's part of the game. But for the Pirates, it's happening way more often than expected.
Including Thursday's game, Pirate hitters had taken 306 called strikes on pitches that were outside the GameDay strike zone, according to data obtained through Baseball Savant. That's the second-most in baseball, only behind the Rangers (322).
"I mean, it stinks," Suwinski said shortly after learning about the number of called strikes and seemingly being taken aback for a moment. "I think it's just part of it and something that we are going to have to roll with and not let us take us out of our focus in what we're trying to do. I think that it, it's just one of the uncontrollables, really. It's just another piece of the game that kind of gets thrown at you in that roller coaster of how things happen and you just got to press on because lingering on it doesn't do anything."
For reference, the Pirates heavily emphasize their catchers' framing abilities. Austin Hedges and Jason Delay are the best framing duo in the league, with FanGraphs estimating they have saved their pitchers 15.5 runs. The two have turned 332 balls into called strikes this season using the same inquiry used to figure out the hitters' called strikes.
The difference between the best framing duo in the league compared to the bad luck the Pirates have experienced with balls and strikes as hitters is just 26 pitches over 87 games, or 0.3 per game. On average, it's as if one of the best framing catchers caught every single game against the Pirates.
"Sometimes the umpire calls a bad pitch, especially this year," Santana said. "It's hard. It's hard on the player."
But unlike pitch framing on the defensive side, where you can target good defensive catchers and develop drills to improve the results and be proactive, hitting is far more reactive.
"That's just luck of the draw," Shelton said. "I don't think there's anything we can do about that."
But those repeated frustrations can carry over beyond a game, even if they know they should flush it.
"I think you saw it build up frustration wise tonight," Shelton said. "But there's nothing we can do about that. We just have to continue to go."
The Pirates' problems Thursday extended beyond a couple of borderline strike calls, though. The offense's only two runs scored in large part to a misplay by David Peralta in left field in the second inning, setting up Nick Gonzales for a two-run double. The Pirates would only muster four hits and one walk on the night. Meanwhile, a pair of two-run home runs by Freddie Freeman in the first and Max Muncy in the sixth sank Johan Oviedo and the Pirates.
The team has not had much success on offense since the end of April. Despite that slump, Haines still showed how much he cared Thursday, and Suwinski certainly appreciated that his hitting coach stood up for him when he felt the bat was taken out of his hands.
"I know he's got some fire in him," Suwinski said. "I see it pretty often in the cage, you know? He gets fired up and I love him for having our backs like that. He always does and he'll always tell us. He's great, so we appreciate him and everything he does."
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Live file
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
• Scoreboard
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE INJURIES
• 10-day injured list: 2B Ji Hwan Bae (ankle)
• 15-day injured list: LHP Jose Hernandez (calf), LHP Rob Zastryzny (forearm)
• 60-day injured list: SS Oneil Cruz (ankle), 1B Ji-Man Choi (Achilles), RHP Wil Crowe (shoulder), RHP JT Brubaker (elbow), LHP Jarlin Garcia (elbow), RHP Max Kranick (elbow), RHP Vince Velasquez (elbow)
THE LINEUPS
Shelton's card:
1. Ke'Bryan Hayes, 3B
2. Bryan Reynolds, LF
3. Henry Davis, RF
4. Carlos Santana, DH
5. Connor Joe, 1B
6. Jack Suwinski, CF
7. Nick Gonzales, SS
8. Rodolfo Castro, 2B
9. Jason Delay, C
And for Dave Robert's Dodgers:
1. Mookie Betts, SS
2. Freddie Freeman, 1B
3. Max Muncy, 3B
4. J.D. Martinez, DH
5. David Peralta, LF
6. Jason Heyward, RF
7. Miguel Vargas, 2B
8. James Outman, CF
9. Austin Barnes, C
THE SCHEDULE
Off to Arizona. Rich Hill (7-8, 4.50) will take on Zac Gallen (10-3, 3.15), with first pitch coming at 9:40 p.m. Eastern. Corey Crisan and I will double cover game one before I head up to Seattle for All-Star/draft festivities Saturday.
THE MULTIMEDIA
THE CONTENT
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