For a synopsis of Friday night’s game — and given its length, the synopsis is what you want — look no further than Aaron Altherr, the Philadelphia Phillies outfielder. Altherr led off the seventh inning and walked. Seven runs later, with two Pirates relievers unable to record three outs, Altherr received another plate appearance.
He walked again.
Trevor Williams did not fool the Phillies. With the exception of Steven Brault, neither did any of the relievers who followed him. The Phillies walked and smashed their way to a 17-5 destruction of the Pirates at PNC Park, the Pirates’ fourth consecutive loss and second game during that span in which they allowed 17 runs. A crowd of 24,846 witnessed the spectacle, which took 4 hours, 30 minutes and registered as the longest nine-inning game in Pirates history. It tied the National League record.
“We’re tired of losing,” Williams said. “I’m tired of getting my (butt) kicked every five days. I’m searching. It’s peaks and valleys, and right now, collectively, we’re in a valley. It’s going to turn around. We’re going to come to the field tomorrow expecting to win and looking to put up some runs.”
At 40-47, the Pirates are 11/2 games ahead of the last-place Cincinnati Reds. Manager Clint Hurdle shuffled the lineup before the game in an effort to generate some offense, but no amount of offense could overcome a pitching staff that could not get outs. Asked if he handled two blowout losses in a four-game span any differently — personally or with his players — Hurdle said, “A lot of times I talk to the team and you never hear about it. Those are the best meetings you can have.”
The Pirates issued 10 walks and allowed 18 hits. They threw 236 pitches, 185 out of the bullpen. Richard Rodriguez walked three batters in two-thirds of an inning. Dovydas Neverauskas allowed only one walk, but he gave up three hits and four runs while recording two outs. Josh Smoker walked two and gave up three runs, all on Andrew Knapp’s seventh-inning home run. Tyler Glasnow allowed three runs in two innings.
“Tonight I just didn’t execute at all,” Smoker said. “It was embarrassing, honestly. I needed to try and take some innings off of the team tonight, and when you throw however many pitches I threw in two-thirds of an inning, it doesn’t help the bullpen out at all.”
Williams exited Friday’s game with one out in the third inning. He had allowed five runs and five hits by that point. He also walked two batters and hit a third. What he hadn’t done was strike anyone out, and of his 51 pitches, only two generated swinging strikes.
After shutting out the Chicago White Sox for seven innings on May 15, Williams had a 2.72 ERA. He had recorded an out in the sixth inning in eight of his nine starts. In nine starts since then, he has completed five or fewer innings in six of them and has a 7.02 ERA.
“For me personally it’s getting a little embarrassing,” Williams said. “I need to have ownership and be better about it.”
In the past 30 days entering Friday’s game, only the Washington Nationals’ rotation had a higher ERA than the Pirates’ 5.24 mark among National League teams, and only the Nationals starters pitched fewer innings than the Pirates’ 1321/3.
The free baserunners Williams allowed penalized him. He issued a leadoff walk to Carlos Santana in the second. After a Scott Kingery single, Maikel Franco doubled off the center-field wall to drive home two runs.
In the bottom of the inning, Nick Pivetta hit Josh Harrison, reopening a wound for Harrison and the team that has festered for more than a season. Williams hit the leadoff batter the following inning with the first pitch he threw.
Then he walked Rhys Hoskins. Then Odubel Herrera homered over the Clemente Wall.
The Pirates had to overcome more than the ineffectiveness of their pitching. Harrison bobbled a routine grounder on the first ball put in play, putting the leadoff man aboard in the first. Josh Bell compensated with a diving stop that began an inning-ending double play.
With runners on first and second and two outs in the bottom half, third-base coach Joey Cora sent Colin Moran, who is not fleet of foot, on Corey Dickerson’s single to right field. Nick Williams threw Moran out at the plate by enough that Moran’s slide didn’t even reach the dish. Dickerson tripled in the fifth, giving the Pirates the tying run at third base with fewer than two outs. With the contact play on, Harrison grounded to third and Dickerson was out at the plate. The Pirates did not score.
“Baseball don’t care about your feelings,” Harrison said. “It does not. You’ve got to keep pushing. You’ve got to show up every day.”
Bill Brink: bbrink@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BrinkPG.
First Published: July 7, 2018, 3:51 a.m.
