CHRISTOPHER PANSINO – OVATHLETICS.COM
Does this sound familiar? Poor pitching. Poor hitting. Pirate blown out in loss.
The Pirates drop the last of game of the series to the San Francisco Giants by the score of 6-0. The loss yesterday brings the Pirates road trip to 2-4 and moves the Pirates below .500 again.
The Pirates got a poor performance out of starting pitcher Charlie Morton. Morton would go six innings with 8 hits, 6 earned runs, and 3 home runs in the loss.
Morton had been upset with his performance during his last start against the Diamondbacks in which he gave up six runs in one inning and vowed to improve.
Morton lived and died with a combination of fastball and curve. However, his control of these pitches ranged from good to down right bad. He kept leaving fastballs over the center of the plate and putting his curveball far outside the strike zone.
He was really fooling no one in later innings with the curve.
His control issues lead to other problems as Morton kept falling behind in the pitch count. That in turn led to more predictable fastball over the plate, which led to more hits and runs.
The Pirates really need him too if they want to win constantly. With the team confident in their top three pitchers, Duke, Maholm, and Ohlendorf, they really need Morton to get more quality starts to help out the rotation and limit the use of the bull pen.
The one positive that came out of Morton start was that he pitched six complete innings, which gave the bull pen some much needed rest.
And as the pitching went yesterday so went the hitting. The Pirates struggled at the plate going a combined 3 for 29 and 13 strikeouts. What made the statistic even worse was that Lastings Milledge had two of those three hits.
These hitting slumps happen together with bad starting pitching has become commonplace this season as the other players seem deflated when the pitchers give up big innings.
The team has shown it knows how to win when they are ahead, but they have yet to show any comeback spirit when faced with a deficit.
The Pirates have lost 5 games by a combined total of 49-12 this season.
The Pirates will have Thursday off before staring a three game home stand with Cincinnati.
