The problem with losing every blowout and winning every close game is of course that baseball teams can’t realistically win every close game. That’s what the Pirates fell victim to last night; scoring some runs, getting a good start, and just falling short against a Houston team that had everyone convinced for a while that they were the worst team in baseball.
Saying that you “can’t win every close game” isn’t exactly right, though, because it implies that the Pirates played well and just kind of came up short. That’s not what happened. Delwyn Young continued to be a trainwreck at third base and Ryan Church poorly judged where a pop-up was dropping in relation to both himself and the close left field wall at Minute Maid Park and those three combined fielding gaffes lead more or less directly to all of the Astros’ runs.
And now the Pirates face a real problem; they lost with Zach Duke on the mound and they lost with Paul Maholm on the mound, so when, exactly, can they get another win? We may have seen .500 for the last time this season.
