After six solid innings from Wandy Rodriguez, after a Tony Sanchez two-run home run and a Gaby Sanchez solo homer off of a righty, after all of those improbable things came together to give the Pirates a 3-2 lead headed into the bottom of the ninth, Mark Melancon went out and gave up a single to Ryan Braun, then walked back to back hitters before giving up a game-ending two-run single by Khris Davis.
Mark Melancon, in his time with the Pirates, had walked a grand total of nine hitters in 90 innings over the past two seasons. That is nine walks against 353 batter’s faced. That means that when a batter comes to the plate, there’s only a 2.5% chance that Mark Melancon will walk that hitter. That means that based on his Pirate career coming into this outing, the odds of Mark Melancon randomly walked back-to-back hitters are something like 0.06%.
Anyway, the Pirates have now blown three ninth inning leads against the Brewers this season, which has created a six-game swing in the NL Central standings.
This one in particular is really, really hard to stomach.
