Pirates' spiral coincides with a lack of execution on the mound, in the field

The Pirates found themselves on the losing end of an ugly affair for the second straight night, suffering a 9-5 loss at the hands of the Cubs in the second game of a three-game set Tuesday night at PNC Park. As was the case in a 10-run loss in which the Pirates allowed a season-high 18 runs on 21 hits, two innings turned what could have been winnable ballgames into crumbling defeats. 

On this night, it wasn't a coincidence that the Pirates' failure to execute coincided with a five-run fourth and a four-run fifth for the visitors. The Cubs managed to get big hits off a returning Jared Jones in the fourth, they took advantage of free bases in the fifth and fundamental plays weren't made during crucial moments, as the Pirates ultimately paid the price in enduring a second series loss in a matter of eight days.

"It's frustrating, but it's baseball," Nick Gonzales said. "You've got nine innings and you've got to play all nine." 

Fresh off the injured list and making his first major-league start since July 3, Jones allowed one hit and walked a batter through his first three innings. He sat at 44 pitches and looked as if he might be on the verge of a lengthy outing. That's what the Pirates needed desperately after Mitch Keller was forced to throw 97 pitches through his third four-inning performance of the month Monday night. Instead, things turned ugly rather quickly due in part to Jones' inability to execute with his breaking pitches. 

Jones walked the first batter he faced in the fourth and, after falling behind 3-1, left a 96 mph fastball low and away that Seiya Suzuki sent the opposite way over the Clemente Wall to tie the game at 2-2: 

Things went from bad to worse for Jones and the Pirates after a one-out walk to Isaac Paredes. Nico Hoerner followed with a line-drive double to left on a four-seam fastball on the inner third. With Paredes hustling his way from first to home, Bryan Reynolds fielded the ball cleanly and hit his cutoff man in Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who then delivered a one-hopper toward home plate on a ball that Henry Davis couldn't gather:

A perfect relay throw from Kiner-Falefa that gave the Pirates a strong chance of keeping the game tied and getting the second out of the inning. Seemed like a play perhaps Davis should have finished. When I specifically asked Derek Shelton if that was a ball Davis needed to corral in that situation, he acknowledged the difficulty associated with the play. 

"That ball's in the runner, that's a tough play, so it's one of those things," Shelton said. "That didn't have the total effect of the game in totality." 

It might not have ultimately played the biggest role in the loss, as a singular run didn't make a difference in the end result of a four-run ballgame, but it didn't help matters. Instead of there being two outs in a tie ball game, Jones was forced to try and limit the damage after seeing the lead vanish. One pitch after the Cubs scored the go-ahead run on the failed attempt to get Paredes at the plate, Jones left a 97 mph fastball practically right down the center of the plate to Dansby Swanson, who belted a two-run shot -- his second homer in as many days -- to make it a three-run cushion: 

Jones ended up striking out two of the final three batters he faced, but he didn't make it past a 39-pitch fourth inning in which he gave up five runs on four hits. So, make that two nights in a row where the Pirates were hoping to get length out of two reliable pieces of their rotation only to see them each last four innings due to high pitch counts. 

"Very uncharacteristic of the fact that we don't get more than four innings out of those guys, so it's a spot where we need to be better and I think we will be better," Shelton said. "But the fact that it happened on back to back nights against a team that's playing really well right now is challenging." 

With Jones out of the ballgame, the Cubs added on in the fifth, but the inning could and should have been over before it ever got out of hand. Jalen Beeks entered and picked up a quick strikeout of Mike Tauchman before allowing a one-out single to Suzuki. He then induced a ground ball off the bat of Cody Bellinger that Gonzales couldn't handle at second base: 

"I made the wrong read," Gonzales told me. "I definitely should have went one-handed to go and get it. Kind of set myself up with a bad hop, in-between hop and should have went and got it. With Bellinger running, he's fast so you try to get two, but I think I should have just went and got it." 

Instead of an inning-ending double play, the inning continued and the Cubs made the home team pay. That's where the free passes came into play. Ben Heller replaced Beeks after the Gonzales error and, after getting the second out, he hit a batter and couldn't get a pitch over the plate in surrendering back-to-back bases-loaded walks to give the Cubs additional separation. 

A lack of execution against Swanson ...

... and again to Pete Crow-Armstrong: 

Oh, and can't forget Miguel Amaya adding on to the fire once Heller was able to get a pitch over the plate in a 2-1 count: 

"It's extremely (frustrating). In the fifth, Beeks came in and did exactly what he's supposed to do, he gets the left-hander out, gets a soft base hit from Suzuki and then gets a routine double play ball and changes the whole dynamic of the inning and possibly the game because of the fact that it's 5-2 at that point," Shelton said. "So, you know, we gotta make a play there. And after that, we've gotta throw strikes and we didn't throw strikes." 

Things haven't gone right by any means for the Pirates over a two-game span in which they've allowed 27 runs, including 23 that were surrendered over four of their 18 innings against the Cubs. Take away the two dreadful innings from this particular loss and the Cubs managed just four total baserunners -- three via walks -- over the other seven innings. So, the lack of execution both on the mound and in the field ultimately factored heavily into yet another disheartening setback, one the Pirates will look to turn the page on. 

"Just flush it, get back after it tomorrow," Gonzales said. "Early game, Paul (Skenes) is on the mound. Just have to play one game at a time."