Pirates Crumble in 10-1 Crushing Defeat Against Rockies

PITTSBURGH — A day after the Pittsburgh Pirates earned a big win against the Colorado Rockies, the Bucs were defeated in dominating fashion on Tuesday night at PNC Park.

A combination of poor pitching, a lack of offense and suspect defense led to a blowout loss for the Pirates by a score of 10-1.

With two outs in the second inning, Luis Ortiz hung a first-pitch slider to Jurickson Profar, who deposited the pitch into the right field seats over the Clemente Wall for a home run. 

Ortiz (0-1) made his season debut in the start for the Pirates and had a bit of a mixed bag on the mound. Ortiz surrendered five runs, but only two of those runs were earned. He allowed seven hits, only walked one but only struck out one. The right-hander threw 74 pitches/50 strikes.

The Rockies (15-22) used a couple hits and some good fortune to strike for four runs in the top of the fourth against Ortiz. It began when Carlos Santana fired to second on a ground ball off the bat of Ryan McMahon. Shortstop Tucupita Marcano didn’t catch the throw and was charged with an error, allowing C.J. Cron to score. 

An Ezequiel Tovar RBI-fielder’s choice, a Charlie Blackmon hard-hit single to right and a Randal Grichuk infield-single resulted in three more runs in the inning for Colorado, who now led 5-1. 

In the seventh, Connor Joe laid out for a nice grab in right field, but it went as a sacrifice fly for Cron to tack on another run for Colorado. The Rockies added on even further when Ryan McMahon tripled to right-center to plate a pair to extend the Rockies’ lead. 

The big inning wasn’t yet over as Profar again went deep for his second of the game and his third career multi-home run game. Profar’s blast off of Duane Underwood Jr. put Colorado ahead by a score of 10-1.

Andrew McCutchen tied the game at 1-1 with a two-out single up the middle to score Ke’Bryan Hayes in the third. With that hit, McCutchen reached 2,500 total bases with the Pirates, which is ninth-best on their all-time list.

Hayes extended his hitting streak to five games with a one-out double prior to McCutchen’s RBI-single.

The Pirates (21-16) were outhit 11-4 and haven’t scored three runs in a game yet in the month of May.

Right-hander Connor Seabold (1-0), who held the Pirates to one run in five innings, earned his first career win.

The Pirates will go for the series win over the Rockies on Wednesday afternoon. Left-hander Rich Hill (3-3, 4.54 ERA) will square off with righty Antonio Senzatela (0-1, 1.80 ERA). First pitch: 12:35.