Falter, Heller plagued by shared struggles in big innings

Bailey Falter had just served up a solo home run to Teoscar Hernandez, allowing the Dodgers to take a one-run lead in the top of the fifth inning when Derek Shelton elected to turn to Ben Heller to make his team debut Thursday night. 

Heller, who had his contract selected from Class AAA Indianapolis Tuesday, entered in hopes of limiting the damage and keeping the Pirates within reach. Instead, he struggled to execute and allowed five earned runs on four hits, including a three-run home run to Mookie Betts in a six-run fifth that ultimately led to an 11-7 loss to the Dodgers at PNC Park. 

"We planned on using him early like we had," Shelton said. "Not to say it’s a low-leverage situation… We had that stretch of right-handers which we thought he would match up well with. He just had a tough first outing.”

After Falter's exit, Heller hit Andy Pages with the second pitch he threw before surrendering four hits to the next five batters. The latter was this three-run blast from Betts on a 1-1 sinker over the heart of the plate: 

For Heller, the struggles stemmed from simply leaving too many pitches up in the zone. Prior to Betts' homer, he left a fastball on the outer third that Kike Hernandez turned into an RBI double. Heller then failed to execute a 3-2 sinker to Austin Barnes, as it caught too much of the plate and was sent into right field for a one-out single. 

"Too many balls in the middle of the plate," Shelton said. "With the exception of the first night, you leave balls in the middle of the plate against this lineup, and it looked like the sweeper and the cutter just were not very effective. The sinker, I mean 96, 97, had some action to it, but the other breaking balls, he left in the middle and left up." 

Three other relievers followed Heller in combining to allow a singular run over four innings. Kyle Nicolas was hindered by three walks, but managed to limit the damage to just one run on two hits in 2 1/3 innings. Recently-signed Justin Bruihl had a clean slate in 2/3 of an inning in his Pirates debut and Carmen Mlodzinski worked around a pair of walks to toss a scoreless ninth.

But like Heller, a lack of execution resulted in five runs on the line of Falter, who entered Thursday having allowed just three earned runs over his previous 21 innings pitched. He started this latest outing by surrendering five hits in the first inning, including four straight to Betts, Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernandez. Freeman's was the biggest blow of the inning, as the first pitch from Falter was a fastball on the inner part of the plate that Freeman sent over the Clemente Wall for a three-run homer and a 3-0 lead: 

"I just wasn't executing pitches. That's all it was," Falter said. "It's a great lineup. It's a good team. They win a lot of games. I just need to be a little bit better. The position players did their job really well tonight, I just need to do mine. I need to get better for them." 

“In the first inning of the game, he just missed too many balls down in the middle of the plate. He missed the ball down to Freddie and we had the play that (Olivares) dove for and we didn’t get an out there," Shelton said. "He did kind of bounce back and readjusted his sight. That’s a challenging lineup with all the right-handers.”

Falter allowed another first-inning run when he left a curveball down the middle to Miguel Rojas, who delivered with an RBI single to make it 4-0. Still, Falter settled down to put up zeroes over the next three innings. The reasoning behind his improved results the second time through the Dodgers' order was simple. 

"Started executing pitches," said Falter, who ended up allowing five earned runs on eight hits with two walks and six strikeouts. He threw 37 pitches in that first inning and ended up with 76 after exiting without getting an out in the fifth. 

“They’re all right-handed with the exception of the two guys at the top -- and the two guys at the top it doesn’t matter if you’re right-handed or left-handed, I mean it’s why they have MVP trophies," Shelton said. "Just tried to stretch him. Could have gone before Teoscar. We were trying to get as many outs as possible, but after the homer then we had a stretch of six right-handers in a row with Mookie and knew they probably weren’t going to pinch hit in an advantage game or even a tie game in the fifth. We just didn’t execute.”

Falter's season ERA swelled from 3.22 to 3.69 with his first rough outing since allowing five runs in five innings against the Athletics on April 29. Over five starts in May, he posted a 2.23 ERA and a 0.96 WHIP, and held opposing hitters to a minuscule .193 batting average. 

Given that he's seen encouraging results more often than not, Falter is confident he can bounce back and execute better next time out. 

"It's a long season. You're not going to be the best or good every single start," Falter said. "It's just stuff to build off of. Sleep on this one, get back with our guys tomorrow and see what we can do to be better for the next one."