SAN DIEGO -- Post-game notes ...
1. The three home runs the Pirates hit weren’t cheap. Jung Ho Kang hammered one into the second deck in left-center, Gregory Polanco lined one opposite-field and Starling Marte roped one off the warehouse. They came in the first three innings.
“If you’re going to hit them, you need to hit them early,” Clint Hurdle said.
There were a few well-hit balls later in the game that died on the warning track, illustrating his point.
“Polanco’s ball was one that we all were like, we’re used to that ball being a double and his ball got out,” Josh Harrison said. “We’re like, it’s a good night to hit, fellas.”
The Padres have moved the fences in over the years to try to make the cavernous Petco Park play more fair. So far this year that’s worked out, though it’s tough to tell how much the completely revamped lineup has to do with it. Looking at home runs per plate appearance in the ballpark in the past four seasons, this season has the highest ratio.
2. As good as the offense was, the defense needed help. “We had three sequences of plays that were very below average that complicated two back-to-back innings,” Hurdle said.
The Pirates allowed two runs each in the fourth and fifth as a result of three poor defensive plays. Justin Upton broke for third on a grounder in front of him and Kang tried to make the play without a force. “If I had a good throw, I would have probably made an out there,” Kang said in Korean, with H.K. Kim translating.
“I think in Kang’s case, the play happened right in front of him,” Hurdle said. “He saw the guy break to third.”
The next two plays featuring defensive issues involved Pedro Alvarez, who is in his first full season playing first base. Cory Spangenberg grounded to Alvarez at first. He stepped on the bag for the out and had a shot to throw home, to get Upton at the plate, or second, to get Derek Norris at second. He held the ball.
“Pedro’s decision, that’s the safe play, but it’s a play that we work very hard on making all the time that really needs to be made at the major league level,” Hurdle said.
In the next inning, after a walk to pinch-hitter Abraham Almonte, Yangervis Solarte grounded to Neil Walker at second. Alvarez initially broke for the ball before retreating to the bag and he was not ready for the throw as Walker briefly turned toward second before throwing slightly wide of first. Francisco Cervelli backed up the play and threw to second, but Kang could not catch the throw and Almonte scored.
“The other ball, he strayed way too far off first base, obviously, when Walker was going to go to second and made the throw back,” Hurdle said. “Those are things he’s working on to get better.”
3. After defensive struggles in the fourth and fifth, the Pirates responded with a four-run sixth, taking advantage of four hit -- two of them RBI doubles -- and a two-run error.
“That just shows that we’re resilient, we’re going to turn the page and separate defense from offense,” Walker said. “A lot of times it’s not trying to carry your offense to your defense but in this case it was exactly the opposite. A.J. [Burnett] did a great job of kind of weathering the storm after we booted the ball around for a little bit. To hammer home a few runs after that inning pretty much was the nail in the coffin, I think.”
First Published: March 24, 2016, 5:02 p.m.
