Mike Burrows shows frustration during his start against the Cubs on Saturday at Wrigley Field.
Don Kelly had a decision to make today and it ended up impacting the Pirates’ 2-1 loss to the Cubs at Wrigley Field in a big way.
Mike Burrows had worked 5 1/3 innings, struck out a career-high eight and threw 81 pitches, the most in his major-league career, before left-handed hitting Pete Crow-Armstrong stepped to the plate.
Burrows, the Pirates’ No. 15 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, underwent Tommy John surgery in April 2023. He made his major-league debut at the end of last year, but the Pirates have slowly been increasing his workload. Outside of throwing 87 and 86 pitches in two minor-league starts this year, he’d never surpassed the 80-pitch mark.
“Against these guys last time out, he was at 66,” Kelly said. “So we pushed him a little bit, a little bit further.”
Crow-Armstrong and Michael Busch, two left-handed hitters, were two of the next three hitters that Burrows would face. Dansby Swanson, who's hit .207 against lefties this season and had already struck out twice, was the hitter between them. Kelly said he liked the lane for Ryan Borucki and pulled the trigger, rather than push Burrows any further.
“Just thought that he (Borucki) had pitched extremely well to that point,” Kelly said. “Liked Borucki with two out of three lefties coming up.”
Borucki did his job by getting Crow-Armstrong to ground out to third before making this mistake by missing his spot with a slider:
That swing resulted in Swanson's 13th home run this season, four of which have come against lefties, and it was the ultimate difference in the Pirates' 43rd loss.
"Just missed my spot a little bit," Borucki said. "I wanted to hit that zero spot or walk him with a lefty on deck and it just stayed up on me. I gotta give him credit, he made a good swing."
Borucki has struggled lately. He's given up three home runs in his last five outings but hadn't allowed a hit over his last two. He did get ahead of Swanson 0-2 and admitted he made a "couple bad pitches" to get to a 3-2 count. His ERA climbed to 5.18 today and he continues searching for the form that led to six straight outings without allowing a hit or earned run earlier this season.
Despite that pitch being the difference on the scoreboard, Burrows, Borucki and Braxton Ashcraft received just one run of support on five hits as the Pirates are now 14-16 in one-run games.
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THE ASYLUM
Greg Macafee
1:26 am - 06.15.2025CHICAGOGoing Deep: The decision that led to the mistake
GETTY
Mike Burrows shows frustration during his start against the Cubs on Saturday at Wrigley Field.
Don Kelly had a decision to make today and it ended up impacting the Pirates’ 2-1 loss to the Cubs at Wrigley Field in a big way.
Mike Burrows had worked 5 1/3 innings, struck out a career-high eight and threw 81 pitches, the most in his major-league career, before left-handed hitting Pete Crow-Armstrong stepped to the plate.
Burrows, the Pirates’ No. 15 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, underwent Tommy John surgery in April 2023. He made his major-league debut at the end of last year, but the Pirates have slowly been increasing his workload. Outside of throwing 87 and 86 pitches in two minor-league starts this year, he’d never surpassed the 80-pitch mark.
“Against these guys last time out, he was at 66,” Kelly said. “So we pushed him a little bit, a little bit further.”
Crow-Armstrong and Michael Busch, two left-handed hitters, were two of the next three hitters that Burrows would face. Dansby Swanson, who's hit .207 against lefties this season and had already struck out twice, was the hitter between them. Kelly said he liked the lane for Ryan Borucki and pulled the trigger, rather than push Burrows any further.
“Just thought that he (Borucki) had pitched extremely well to that point,” Kelly said. “Liked Borucki with two out of three lefties coming up.”
Borucki did his job by getting Crow-Armstrong to ground out to third before making this mistake by missing his spot with a slider:
That swing resulted in Swanson's 13th home run this season, four of which have come against lefties, and it was the ultimate difference in the Pirates' 43rd loss.
"Just missed my spot a little bit," Borucki said. "I wanted to hit that zero spot or walk him with a lefty on deck and it just stayed up on me. I gotta give him credit, he made a good swing."
Borucki has struggled lately. He's given up three home runs in his last five outings but hadn't allowed a hit over his last two. He did get ahead of Swanson 0-2 and admitted he made a "couple bad pitches" to get to a 3-2 count. His ERA climbed to 5.18 today and he continues searching for the form that led to six straight outings without allowing a hit or earned run earlier this season.
Despite that pitch being the difference on the scoreboard, Burrows, Borucki and Braxton Ashcraft received just one run of support on five hits as the Pirates are now 14-16 in one-run games.
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