PIRATES

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Matt Gorski's tagged out at the plate by the Padres' Elias Diaz in the seventh inning.

An error's an error. It's an official fielding thing. Scorer's decision. Goes in the book and all that.

Mistakes are different.

So it's not enough, I'm feeling compelled to point out amid the Pirates' putrid-in-every-way 12-23 start after the 4-0 loss to the Padres today at PNC Park, to limit the scope of this particular bit of badness.

See, this was the home team's lone error:

Jared Triolo, fresh off a Gold Glove in 2024, fields the check-swing one-hopper off the bat of Luis Arraez, hesitates a moment to glance at Xander Boegarts having aggressively taken third base, then throws across the diamond too late.

Fielder's choice?

Nope, because no out was recorded.

Single?

Nope, because Arraez, in a rarity for him, didn't deserve a hit.

That makes it an error. And a big-whoop error at that.

I counted a half-dozen mistakes in all, including the above error, so let's talk about three:

Boegarts lunges to pull that ball through the hole in the left side ... or was it really the hole under Ke'Bryan Hayes' usually brilliant glove?

I'd suggest it's the latter, but Dave Musil, the official scorer in the press box here today, saw it as a single, and his judgment's the only one that counts.

Still, it's a mistake, albeit a physical one.

Time for the egregious:

Yeah, no. Not that one. No amount of overall defensive excellence buys a reprieve for Hayes failing to cover third base on a clear-as-day double steal. Can't happen.

Infinitely more egregious:

I'll lay this scene out: Seventh inning, Pirates down by four, Matt Gorski with a one-out triple ... so, being that a bunch of runs are needed to tie, he's got zero business breaking off third on Triolo's chopper to Manny Machado, who throws across his body maybe as well as anyone who's ever played the position.

As Gorski made his way down the dugout steps after that, he passed a Derek Shelton who couldn't even glance at him.

I asked Shelton if he'd ever see fit to bench a player for a major mistake, since I can't recall that he's ever done that. Iin turn, he asked that I get specific. So I cited Gorski.

The full exchange:

"He made a young player mistake," Shelton would say of Gorski, who's 27 and spent seven years in the Pirates' minor-league system before his promotion last month. "I talked to him the next inning. He made a young mistake. He's never been on the field with Manny and know that, in a four-run deficit, ball to his right hand side ... he's got to learn. Pulling him off the field and embarrassing him there, no. But talk to him, yeah. It wasn't a lack of effort play, it was a lack of awareness play. We have to talk to him."

I nodded in agreement. I can respect that.

"If that ball is hit to Bogaerts or to Jose Iglesias, he scores. But he's got to know, a ball hit to Manny's right, to maybe one of the best defenders in the last 50 years, he probably is going to get flat-footed — although Manny is one guy that does have the arm to make that throw — but he's going to throw the ball to the plate. It's a learning moment for Gorski. It sucks in the moment because it ended up costing us a run, but embarrassing the kid right there, I'm not going to do that."

Yep. Understood.

Now, about all these times Shelton's players are embarrassing him ...