Do we have to talk about yesterday’s game? One of my least favorite 2014 memories was the carbon-copy back-to-back walkoff losses the Pirates had in St. Louis in the early summer, one on a Matt Adams walkoff homer and one on a Kolten Wong walkoff homer. We’re barely into the 2015 season at all and the Pirates have already created a stomach-churning counterpart to that. After losing 2-1 in ten innings on Friday night because they couldn’t get a hit with the bases loaded and no outs early in the game. the Pirates lost 2-1 in 11 innings on Saturday because they left 18 runners on base and went 1-for-13 with runners in scoring position. The Pirates had a runner in scoring position in the first, fifth, sixth, seventh, ninth, tenth, and 11th innings without scoring in any of them. John Lackey missed his spots all day long (you could watch Yadier Molina’s glove jump around the strike zone because Lackey was so inaccurate), and the Pirates could only score once despite putting nine runners on base against him in six innings. In the tenth inning, Mike Matheny brought on a left-handed pitcher to face Jordy Mercer to lead off the inning with the game on the line, Mercer double to give Jung Ho Kang and the top of the order three chances to score him, and nothing happened. The game was terrible to watch. The Pirates themselves have been pretty terrible to watch against the Cubs and Cardinals this week.
Anyway, Vance Worley faces off against Michael Wacha today. Wacha has looked pretty good this year after struggling with shoulder problems last year, but he hasn’t really been able to strike a ton of hitters out. Worley has not been good this year. If the Pirates lose today, they will be 6 1/2 games behind the Cardinals. It’s early in the season, but being 6 1/2 games behind the Cardinals at any point isn’t really a great place to be for a team that aspired to win the NL Central a month ago.
First pitch today is at 2:15.
Photo by Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images
