Pirates left with hollow feeling after 7-4 loss

March 16, 2012 8:55 pm

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By Dejan Kovacevic / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

It would not be fair to describe the Pirates as lacking heart.

Most of their players still sweat, still speak passionately about salvaging something from a season that now stands at 10-25 -- a quarter of the way to 100 losses -- after a 7-4 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks last night at PNC Park.

But a heart of the order?

Not much beating there, willing or otherwise.

Jason Bay, the cleanup man, stepped to the plate with a total of nine men on base and brought home one, that on a rally-dousing double play that failed to register an RBI, while going 1 for 5 with three strikeouts.

For the season, he has 14 RBIs and is 6 for 33 with runners in scoring position, a .181 clip that is miles below his .346 of last season.

Jeromy Burnitz, the man behind Bay, fared no better in leaving seven men on base and going 0 for 5 to lower his season average to .187. That included coming to the box in the ninth as the tying run but striking out swinging against Arizona closer Jose Valverde.

For the season, he has 16 RBIs and is 7 for 38 with runners in scoring position, a .184 clip.

"We had a chance tonight to do some significant offensive damage," manager Jim Tracy said afterward. "We're missing entirely too many runner-in-scoring-position at-bats, the game-changing at-bats."

To boot, with the Pirates trailing, 6-3, in the eighth, Burnitz clearly failed to run full-tilt on a leadoff bouncer that forced Arizona second baseman Orlando Hudson to range well into the right-field grass. What was left of the crowd of 14,509 loudly booed Burnitz back to the dugout.

That transgression was magnified when Ronny Paulino followed with a single and, an out later, scored on Jose Castillo's double to pull the Pirates within two.

Tracy, who pledged from the day he was hired that effort would never be an issue with his team, did not deny that Burnitz went less than all-out. But he also defended him.

"Well, you know, he went down the line," Tracy responded to a reporter's question. "Obviously, he hit a ground ball to the second baseman. I don't know ... do you think he's going to be safe? I mean, he was going down the line, Orlando Hudson fielded the ball cleanly and recorded the out. You know, it's not something to sit here and nit-pick things like that. I just explained very clearly why we got beat tonight. That's not why we got beat."

Tracy might have fortified the middle of the order by using Craig Wilson, but he benched Wilson's .255 average and seven home runs in favor of Jose Hernandez, who went 0 for 4 to drop his average to a team-worst .150.

Tracy's explanation was twofold: One, Wilson was 0 for 7 with five strikeouts against Arizona starter Brandon Webb. Two, Tracy said, "You enhance yourself defensively a little bit."

Wilson's .996 fielding percentage ranks second among National League first basemen. Hernandez, a middle infielder by trade, was charged with an error when failing to corral a low throw in the fourth inning.

Bay emerged immediately after the game to face the media despite his difficult evening and an ice pack on his right knee for something he described as "a little thing."

"It obviously wasn't my best game," he said. "I came up in big situations and didn't get the job done. ... It's always frustrating. Games are won and lost by making hits count and, right now, we're getting hits but not runs."

The Pirates had 13 hits but went 3 for 11 with runners in scoring position and are 12 for 64 in the past seven games (.188).

Their larger issue has been a failure to put men on base -- especially in front of Bay -- as evidenced by a .302 on-base percentage that ranks last in the league. But that was not the problem here.

After Arizona scored twice in the first, the Pirates matched that in the bottom half of the inning.

For the first time all season, the first three batters -- Jose Bautista, Nate McLouth and Freddy Sanchez, in this case -- had hits, with Sanchez's driving in a run. Bay bounced into a double play to score another, and Burnitz hit a comebacker to Webb.

With the Diamondbacks back on top, 3-2, in the third, the Pirates' top three again singled after one out to load the bases. Bay fanned swinging, and Burnitz flied out to center.

The Pirates tied the score, 3-3, on Castillo's RBI double in the sixth, but Arizona took the lead for good in its next at-bat with a run against reliever Damaso Marte. Shawn Green doubled, and Johnny Estrada's bloop single to left brought him home.

Maholm lasted 5 2/3 innings and gave up three runs despite 10 hits and four walks. He stranded 10. A week ago in New York, similarly, he stranded nine Mets while giving up one run in six innings.

"I'm a sinker guy, so I'm going to give up hits," Maholm said. "But my mechanics were off again, and I was just looking for the big pitch to get out of jams."

Peter Diana, Post-Gazette
Center fielder Nate McLouth cuts off the ball from left fielder Jason Bay against the Diamondbacks last night at PNC Park.
Click photo for larger image.