By Bill Brink / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
For all but the first three batters Wednesday night, manager Clint Hurdle had the benefit of watching his pitching staff on TV.
“I had an excellent opportunity [Wednesday] to watch where our targets were set and where the pitches were going,” said Hurdle, whose first-inning ejection was the earliest of his career. “It wasn’t anywhere near what we need to be.”
Hurdle watched Jeff Locke walk five batters in three-plus innings. He watched A.J. Schugel walk two in one inning while giving up three runs. He watched 21 Milwaukee Brewers reach base in the Pirates’ 9-5 loss at PNC Park.
Locke (8-6) faced three batters in the fourth, but put them all on base without recording an out. In three-plus innings he gave up five runs, seven hits and five walks. In Locke’s past seven starts, he has an 8.39 ERA.
“Just one of those ones you really wish you could have back,” Locke said.
By increasing his season ERA to 5.54, Locke has the third-worst ERA among qualified starters in Major League Baseball, behind Tampa Bay’s Drew Smyly and Colorado’s Chad Bettis. Tonight’s starter, Francisco Liriano, is ninth (5.11). It is because of such performances that the Pirates are considering pitching help inside and outside their organization. They entered Wednesday game ranked tied for 22nd in starter’s ERA and 24th in innings pitched from the starting rotation.
Locke’s performances defy explanation. As recently as June 25, he allowed one run in seven walk-free innings to the Los Angeles Dodgers. In the start before that, he pitched 6⅔ scoreless innings against the San Francisco Giants. But those two outings followed two starts in which his opponents scored a combined 18 runs in 8⅔ innings.
“We’re continuing to try to work with him and help him, and I know he’s trying to answer the challenges that come with it as well,” Hurdle said.
Wednesday, Locke had his changeup, but not his command. Of his five strikeouts, three came swinging on changeups. But he walked at least one batter in each inning he started, and three of those batters scored. All four leadoff batters he faced reached base.
“If pitching from the stretch was that great, everybody would do it,” Locke said. “That’s why we have windups. Just never really got my toehold in.”
Hurdle’s active role Wednesday ended before the first out. Jonathan Villar walked and Hernan Perez singled in the first inning. Hurdle yelled at home-plate umpire Sam Holbrook after Ryan Braun fouled a ball into the ground that bounced up and hit him — a ball that looked as if it might have hit him in fair territory — and Holbrook threw him out.
“I just shared my view that I thought it hit him in fair play,” Hurdle said. “He said that’s enough. I thought it was a little early to say that’s enough, and, obviously, that was enough.”
Chris Carter’s leadoff double in the second turned into the Brewers’ first run. Carter reached third on Locke’s wild pitch, and Brewers starter Chase Anderson knocked a single through the right side. Villar scored Will Middlebrooks, who had walked, with a single.
A double steal by Ryan Braun and Jonathan Lucroy led to two runs in the third, erasing a Pirates lead. Braun singled, Lucroy walked, and they took second and third without a throw. That meant that when a fan seated down the right-field line scooped Scooter Gennett’s double off the playing field, they both scored anyway.
“Gave up a few, we come back and score and take the lead, go out and give up a couple more,” Locke said. “That’s the only thing we were really consistent at today, was just not doing your job very well. We’ve got to get back to the drawing board.”
Bill Brink: bbrink@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BrinkPG.
First Published: July 21, 2016, 2:50 a.m.
