Pirates 3 Cardinals 4 F/14
Man.
Just wow. I'm speechless.
But at the same time I need to post this while the wound is still fresh.
First, let me be clear. Even though the Pirates have lost 4 in a row, they are still in fantastic shape. 2 games up on the Cards, and they have the 3rd best record in baseball (Atlanta 73-47; Boston 72-49; Pittsburgh 70-48).
But did that loss ever hurt. Not in a standings sort of way but it was an emotional blow.
Pirates never trailed until the end, but you could sense it teetering on the edge of disaster even in the early going.
It's hard to remember all the way back to Morton and Wainwright, but both starting pitchers were alright. It would've been nice to see Morton go deeper than 6 innings, but I don't have too many complaints about his line: 6 IP, 2 ER, 7H, 2 BB, 3 K's. Especially considering that those two runs were both on ground balls the snuck through the holes in the 6th, so at least Morton was playing his own game.
After the McCutchen and Mercer HRs made it 3-0, it seemed like the top halves of the innings were in fast forward. Granted there were a couple good at bats and some batters did work some counts (Mercer started off the game great in the batter's box), but it seemed like every time there was a runner on they'd be erased by a double play or it wouldn't matter because the batter would hit a weak grounder at the second baseman.
The Bucs hung by a thread heading into the 8th, up 3-2. John Jay hit a 2 out single off Bryan Morris to put runners at the corners. Then on one of the most unbelievable plays I've ever seen, Matt Adams hit a hard liner to right. The instant he hit it, your heart dropped, you knew the game was tied and you had little hope of the Pirates getting a fourth run.
Then the camera switches and you see Neil Walker leap up. Your brain tries to process why he's so far back on the outfield grass and before you know it there's 3 outs and the Pirates are running toward the dugout.
A brilliant shift. Hurdle placed Walker perfectly. And with Mark Melancon readying for the 9th, you were confident.
The top of the 9th went by so fucking fast you'd barely know it ever happened if you weren't paying close attention.
Melancon's in. Pete Kozma, the soft hitting SS is up. Two pitches, ground out to second baseman Walker (again, in the right spot, haha).
Then the turning point. A 1-0 pitch to Daniel Descalso was skied to left. A soft fly ball. Marte, who always catches balls with one hand (as does McCutchen and so many other OFs) booted it. The ball bounded off the heel of his glove, and Descalso advanced to 2nd.
You're in awe of that, for sure. But Melancon's on the mound. Melancon is so calm and cool, he had no reaction to that at all. I love that about him. He just goes about his business.
Matt Carpenter swings and misses at a 2-2 pitch. Two out. Melancon was painting. Seriously, go back and look at this at bat. 5 pitches, all low and in if I recall. It was a thing of beauty.
Now, the real problem with the Marte error was that he allowed the tying run to get into scoring position, but another horrible result of it was it meant that Melancon would have to face either Carlos Beltran (who's killed the Bucs in the past and is just a flat out good hitter) or Allen Craig (who is an absolute beast with RISP - whether you buy into stats with RISP as a valuable metric for predictive purposes - 0.464 BA w/ RISP this year is pretty incredible).
On a 1-1 pitch, a finely placed pitch low and away off the plate, Craig hits a single to right, tying the game. 3-3. It's a brand new ballgame. Beltran gets caught between 2nd and 3rd to immediately send the game to extras.
Now these extra innings, one after the other, holy crap were they rollercoasters. Made that much more extreme by the events leading up to extras and the relative placements of the Bucs and Cards in the standings.
Top of the 10th - Bucs get G. Sanchez to 3rd with 2 outs. (Marte bunted him over, on a well executed play that I can't agree with, even though 9/10 managers call the bunt in that situation - though I wonder if it had been more of a fair fight whether to bunt or not I wonder if Marte's emotional state after the dropped fly ball would've played a part - you could see him visibly stewing in left after the play) Unfortunately, we can't knock him in.
Bottom of the 10th - Mazzaro walks Holliday. Rob Johnson bunts a ball hard at Gaby Sanchez, who makes the brave choice to throw to second base. Unfortunately the throw is wide and pulls Mercer off the bag. 2 on no out. Jay sacrifices to make it 2nd and 3rd 1 out. After an IBB (there would be many more of these), Mazarro strikes out Kozma and gets Descalso to fly out to left center, a ball that McCutchen loudly calls for. You could see Cutch rib Marte a bit as they ran to the dugout. Nice to see Marte's spirit lifted. I love this team.
Top of the 11th - Bucs get runners on 1st and 2nd with 2 outs. But fail to cash in when Mercer strikes out. Barmes was the pinch hitter for the pitcher's spot this inning which didn't help things.
Bottom of the 11th - Gomez relieves Mazzaro. A single then a wild pitch made a runner on 2nd with no out. Then a ground out, and a IBB to get to the pitcher Maness. I didn't realize this until after the game but Harrison was pulled in from right to act as a 5th infielder in this situation. Gomez induced the ground ball to Barmes, who was apparently a bit confused (as I was) who was covering 2nd. Harrison - the RF - covered and took a poor feed from Barmes for the double play to end the inning. A 6-9-3 double play. Wow, crazy crazy.
Top of the 12th - G. Sanchez, Marte, Walker out 1-2-3.
Bottom of the 12th - Gomez replied with a 1-2-3 of his own. First such bottom inning since the 5th.
Top of the 13th - The most heartbreaking inning of the bunch. By a wide margin too. Cutch single. Wild Pitch. Alvarez infield single. 1st and 3rd nobody out. Alright, this is our chance. Russell Martin (who has got to be exhausted by the way, though no excuses) grounds to short. Kozma makes a nice play and McCutchen holds at 3rd. I don't think McCutchen could have scored on that play, Kozma was too shallow. Barmes was intentionally walked. Then on an 0-1 pitch Harrison grounded to Descalso at third (he replaced Freese) who stepped on 3rd for the force and threw to 1st, inning over.
At first I was happy because I didn't see Descalso step on 3rd, so I thought the run scored, but I quickly realized what really happened. Man, what a let down that whole thing was.
Bottom of the 13th - With 2 outs Matt Carpenter hit a double. And then something I don't think I've ever seen before occurred. Two straight intentional walks to load the bases and get to the pitcher Sean Maness. Maness struck out. Great job by Gomez.
Top of the 14th - Groundout, flyout, walk, K.
Bottom of the 14th - Jared Hughes enters, who still has not regained my trust since last year when he and Chris Resop (who I will never speak ill of, despite his struggles he bailed the Bucs out of some tough times during his tenure) were manning the middle relief situations in the pen. After striking out Rob Johnson, Hughes gave up a single to John Jay. Jay stole second, and then scored on a surpisingly close play at the plate on the single by Adron Chambers. (The play itself looked startlingly similar to the Sid Bream play, but that's not something I'm gonna say out loud.)
Bucs lose 4-3.
A tough loss. That's an understatement. But the war is still raging and we're still on the winning side, for now.
I want the Pirates to win this division so badly. I think they can do it.
Let's go Bucs!
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