PIRATES

It is becoming an alarming theme as the Pirates' pitching staff, which was believed to be the anchor of the organization, faltered again as the Marlins defeated the Pirates, 8-3, tonight at PNC Park. 

Braxton Ashcraft managed to toss five innings with less than his best stuff that we've seen all season, allowing two earned runs on five hits, two walks, and five strikeouts to get a no-decision. It was the second start in a row for Ashcraft to last just five innings. 

“It’s frustrating. I think just the all-encompassing way of explaining it is it just boils down to execution," Ashcraft said. "If I don’t execute, at-bats get extended, innings get extended, pitch count gets up and you don’t allow yourself to go deep into games – and that’s the beginning, middle and end to that story.”

What followed was the bullpen imploding again as Wilber Dotel struggled for his second straight appearance, allowing four earned runs on four hits, three walks, and two strikeouts in 1 2/3 innings to take the loss. It was also his second time out that his fastball velocity was down, tonight dropping 1.9 mph from his season average. 

"The walks bit us there in the seventh inning," Don Kelly said. "Walk, bunt base hit, then another walk. At the beginning of the outing, it looked like his fastball velocity was down a little bit. He regained some of that throughout the outing. It just looked like the command was not there."

Then in the seventh inning, Antwone Kelly came into the game to make his major-league debut with the Pirates down 6-2 to get the final out. Then in the eight inning, he allowed a double to Javier Sanoja down the left field line on a 100.7 mph four-seam fastball, then a two-run homer to Liam Hicks on a low changeup. 

The pitching staff's 5.11 ERA over the last 30 days is the fourth-worst in Major League Baseball. Much of that from the bullpen's season long record of a 4.57 ERA, the ninth worst. All of which leaves little margin for error for an offense ranked fourth in runs scored. The Pirates are now searching for answers for a bullpen struggling to find its way. 

"They’re trying to simplify everything and get back to executing pitches, getting ahead, doing the things that we talked about in spring training, " Kelly said. "Tonight, seventh inning with the two walks, it didn’t work out that way. Key to pitching is getting ahead and being able to put guys away, induce early, soft contact earlier in the count."

Ashcraft still believes in the pitching staff: “We’ve seen a lot of success out of everybody on this team. There’s no doubt in my mind that that success will continue. It’s a long season. It’s 162 games. I think we all believe in this clubhouse that there will be some bonus games at the end of the year but it’s hard to put too much weight on a bad week or a bad couple of weeks. It’s a long season. There’s ebbs and flows. That’s the game of baseball. There’s been failures and there’s been success on complete opposite ends of that spectrum. I think with the room that we’ve got in here from top to bottom, the success will outweigh the failure.”