Pitching is the backbone to any successful team, without it they are set up for failure. For the second straight day the Pittsburgh Pirates offense was unable to help out a strong outing from their starter. Jeff Locke was the victim of this tonight, against the New York Mets.
Locke has been everything a team would want out of a five guy in the rotation, and with recent rotation turmoil, he has looked like a three man. Tonight he would last six innings allowing one run on three hits, with three walks and three K’s. That lone run came in the second on a sacrifice fly to right that scored John Buck.
It’s not like the Bucco offense did not have opportunities. In the sixth inning, Pittsburgh had a chance to break this game open when they had the bases loaded with no outs. Up first was Pedro Alvarez who hit a sacrifice fly to tie the game. Next was Brandon Inge, he would pop out to right, which was followed by Clint Barmes grounding out to short. In this situation all I can think of is S.O.B., same ole buccos.
The only other Pittsburgh run came in the eigth off of the bat of Alvarez, which was a solo shot to right field. Unfortunately this game was not on TV, since this will probably be Pedro’s only appearance of the month. A total of ten men were left on base for the Pirates, way too many, considering they only got two men across the plate.
The Mets took the lead in the seventh when Ike Davis hit a RBI double off of Tony Watson. New York then won the game in the bottom part of the ninth when Mike Baxter singled off of Jason Grilli, who was in during a non-save situation, why?
The Pirates need to fix this situation fast. The past two years the pitching went south fast and with no guarentee that it won’t happen again, games like this need to be won. Wandy Rodriguez will start for Pittsburgh tomorrow night and hopefully he finds his early April self out on the mound. First pitch is at 7:10pm
Record vs. Mets: 0-1
Record vs. N.L. East: 7-5
Record on the Road: 8-9
Overall Record: 18-16
And…
As Always…
Let’s Go Bucs!
