Pirates
Pirates Blow Lead in 6th Inning, Fall 5-4 to Angels
PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Pirates briefly built a two-run lead in the fifth only to fall back behind in the top of the sixth and were edged out 5-4 by the Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday afternoon at PNC Park.
The Pirates (17-21) had gone 18-straight innings without scoring a run before putting up a four-spot in the fifth inning.
Trailing by a pair, the Pirates loaded the bases with two outs against Angels starter José Soriano for Oneil Cruz.
Cruz drilled a bases-clearing double into the right-center gap. The Pirates’ shortstop finished the game 2 for 4 and is hitting .327 over his last 15 games.
Connor Joe followed Cruz and fought one off into right field for a run-scoring single, giving the Pirates a 4-2 advantage.
The Pirates’ lead was short lived, however, as the Angels (14-23) came back with three runs in the top of the sixth to retake the lead.
Los Angeles opened the inning with back-to-back hits off of left-hander Martín Pérez, which ended the starter’s day.
Luis Ortiz entered the game in relief of Pérez and surrendered an RBI-single to Logan O’Hoppe and a Brandon Drury run-scoring double. Willie Calhoun’s sacrifice fly put the Angels back out in front by a run.
Jo Adell opened the scoring with a solo home run off of Pérez in the third. Adell put the Angels ahead 2-0 with an RBI-single in the fifth.
Pérez’s final line read five-plus innings, eight hits, four runs, no walks and five strikeouts. For the Angels, Soriano was tagged with four runs in 4.2 innings and struck out six.
Adam Cimber (3-0) was credited with the win and Luis Ortiz (2-2) took the loss for the Pirates. Carlos Estévez collected his sixth save of the season.
Aroldis Chapman struck out two batters in a scoreless seventh inning and passed Jesse Orosco for the second-most strikeouts by a left-handed reliever all-time. Chapman now has 1,170 strikeouts in his career and trails only Billy Wagner, who has 1,196.
Up Next
The Pirates have an off day on Thursday before starting a home series with the Chicago Cubs on Friday night. Neither team has announced a starting pitcher. First pitch: 6:40.
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Sheltless has it in for Perez
April 9th, 8 inning Gem on Black Bednar Tuesday VS Detroit
They lost that game and were 9-3.
I was there , you can almost feel when a loss is going to linger
Bucs 9-19 since
Almost out did himself yesterday. I often wonder what the players think when he does something 29 other managers would never consider repeating
Because of this manager, I end up streaming the minors more often,
WHY? Good reason not to have to worry about seeing what he did to the team but moreso to Kyle Nicolas
Danny, have you ever seen a skipper watch his pitcher HIT a batter and then throw 13-14 consecutive balls no where close to the zone,
that was 25 yo prospect abuse
Example, during the two major tank years is when i signed up for the MILB package
I got to see Nickolas in GBO a few times, then struggle as a starter in Altoona and eventually get moved to the pen.
Kyle Nicolas has some of the best stuff in the system when he’s locked in, you know as much im sure
However, he’s fragile in a sense that one bad pitch or scenerio can change locked in to locked out almost instantly
After he plowed through Bellinger and Morel to almost get Skenes out of the mess
he hit the next batter. I watched and hoped he could find the zone and get the last out
He threw just two pitches and i knew it was about to start unraveling
Did anyone ask him why he left him in there when evev KN knew himself it was unlikely he would throw another strike
Who does that anywhere anytime anyplace, no one from this planet thats for sure
I hope he didn’t ruin him he was having a nice start to the year
Unfortunatly thats what he does best