Collier: Pirates pay price for lack of hitting
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Two soft RBIs and a real, real hard one were the Pirates' offense last night, two cling peaches and one 450-foot jawbreaker courtesy of Brad Eldred representing the totality of a bizarre menu that looked for most of a miserable night as though it would gag the Houston Astros.
There was nothing unusual about the Pirates' scoring three runs. It's their favorite total to this point. Scoring exactly thrice in six of their first 19 games, and thrice or less 11 different times, Jim Tracy's club might be the worst offense in the National League right now if it weren't for, well, these same Astros.
The last time I saw the Astros struggling to score this badly, they were handing the 2005 World Series to the Chicago White Sox. The Pirates' offensive challenges are, naturally, much fresher in the memory. Last night, it was the aesthetic dichotomy of the "attack" that was notable.
In the home half of the fourth, for example, Jack Wilson scratched an infield hit when Astros starter Matt Albers, covering first base on a ball hit softly to the right of first baseman Lance Berkman, forgot the part about stepping on the bag. One pitcher later, Jose Bautista extended a hitting streak to 12 games with a double inside the right-field line that chased Wilson to third.
Bautista was hitting third in lieu of Freddy Sanchez, who was scratched an hour before game time with eye irritation. The club reported a "foreign object" had invaded the right eye of the defending National League batting champion yesterday afternoon, and that Sanchez had seen a doctor, who removed it.
The object, not the eye.
Tracy's re-written lineup brought Jose Castillo back to his second-base position, the one he lost in spring training, and that was all right until the Astros batted in the ninth. After Jason Lane's infield hit started the inning, Adam Everett sent a grounder into the hole to the right of Wilson at short. Jack ran it down and got a low throw to Castillo at the bag for a force, but apparently unsatisfied with that, Castillo attempted the impossible completion of a double play, whipping it past first baseman Adam LaRoche from a ridiculous angle. Luke Scott drove Everett home from second, and Craig Biggio tied the score against Salomon Torres one batter later.
You might remember that little spasm the next time Castillo mentions that idleness is the devil's workshop.
In any case, with Wilson on third, Bautista on second and first base open at the start of the fourth, Astros manager Phil Garner had no difficulty pitching to Jason Bay, especially with LaRoche on deck. LaRoche, after all, was still looking for the hit that would pull him even with the Pirates' pitching staff at seven all.
He was still looking two hours later.
No opposing manager has issued any Pirates hitter an intentional walk this season, and no other offense can claim a similar distinction.
So Bay chopped a 1-2 pitch to second baseman Biggio to score Wilson, then LaRoche lifted a bit of performance art to center, his interpretation of the world's shortest sacrifice fly. Chris Burke caught it, and third base coach Jeff Cox sent Bautista home, partly because Cox correctly anticipated Burke's soft throw and partly because he has noticed runs are hard to come by, sort of like hits with runners in scoring position.
For what offense is supposed to look like, the Pirates were referred to Eldred, who lugged an 0-for-17 slump to the plate to lead off the fifth.
Eldred, playing right field again for the hamstrung Xavier Nady, found the 2-1 slider Albers left over the plate simply too egregious to go unpunished, and mashed in into the raw April night. It landed 40 feet behind the 410 sign at the extreme back yard, and the Pirates had their three for what was at that point, a 3-1 lead.
Three, of course, just isn't getting it done.
As the game last night staggered into the 11th inning at 3-3, that portion of the somewhat hostile 8,201 on hand probably took little comfort in the fact that the Pirates would head into today with no worse a record than the New York Yankees.
And they're $150 million less expensive, by the way.
First Published April 25, 2007 11:30 pm
