The story everyone’s talking about in this one is the runners left on base by the Pirates, and that’s for a good reason. Each of the Pirates first hitters reached base at least once, but they only scored one run. The first four hitters reached base TEN TIMES tonight, and somehow the Pirates managed to only score one run. I’m not really sure how that happens, to be honest.
The worst part about this weird offensive anomaly is that it happened on a night that Jeff Karstens made a good start. I’ll say what I said after his last start; we can’t afford to waste good Jeff Karstens starts. Six innings, no walks, three runs, that’s as good as we’re going to see from him, I think. I mean, besides the 450+ foot homer he gave up to a rookie.
But then again, who can complain? We just took two out of three from the Cardinals! After an eight-game losing streak! Seriously, though, leaving runners on base like the Bucs did tonight is entirely fluky, even for an offense like the Buccos have. The key now? Not losing eight games in a row again.
