A few weeks ago, it looked as though this Pirates season was a lost cause. However, the Buccos rattled off five straight series wins and suddenly found themselves back over .500 with an outside shot at a Wild Card spot. Unfortunately, the Cubs put an end to that streak.
Game one was scheduled to be an absolute pitcher’s duel. It was supposed to be Braxton Ashcraft, who at this point is the Pirates’ bona fide ace, against Shota Imanaga, who had given up a whopping total of one run to the Bucs in his six career outings against them. Unfortunately, on Thursday, the Pirates learned that Ashcraft will miss the rest of the season with right arm discomfort. Early returns on testing make it look like he might have avoided long-term damage, but in the short term, this was a brutal injury to suffer.
Wilber Dotel took the mound for his first career start in Ashcraft’s place, and against all odds, the Pirates gave him an early lead to work with. Konnor Griffin swatted a leadoff triple against Imanaga in the first, and Oneil Cruz immediately drove him in to continue his absurdly hot stretch. Controversy then struck. Cruz attempted to steal second base and was called out on the field, but replay revealed that he beat the tag and got into the base safely. And yet, after the umpires contacted New York, they determined there wasn’t sufficient evidence to call Cruz safe. It was an unfathomable call, made even more painful by the fact that Rafael Flores Jr. hit a single just a few batters later that would’ve scored Cruz.
Alas, the Pirates still had a 1-0 lead going into the Cubs’ half of the second inning, at which point everything unraveled. After Jake Mangum made a great catch that ended up allowing the Cubs to score one on a sac fly, it looked as though Dotel got out of trouble when he got rookie Pedro Ramirez to ground into a tailor-made double play ball. Flores, playing first, whipped the ball to second base, and then Konnor Griffin went to throw the ball back to first to complete the double play… except Dotel didn’t cover the bag. With the inning still alive, Carson Kelly immediately made Dotel pay for the mental error with a two-RBI double, and the rest of the game was miserable.
With a taxed pen, the Pirates had to roll Khristian Curtis out there for the third inning and essentially leave him out there to die. He gave up six runs over three innings, and Antwone Kelly gave up three runs of his own over the next three. A miserable bump day for the Pirates was matched by an equally bad performance at the plate and in the field. Despite 10 baserunners throughout the game, the Bucs were only able to push across two runs, with their second coming on a Bryan Reynolds solo shot. There were multiple occasions of pop flies dropping for hits due to miscommunication or a lack of hustle. Esmerlyn Valdez, who had a rough throwing error earlier in the game, suffered a hamstring injury that will end his rookie campaign. It was simply a brutal day for the Pirates at a time when a win would’ve been massive, as the team fell back to .500.
Game two saw the offense come out just as flat. Former Pirate Clay Holmes was stifling the Bucs through five shutout innings and had a two-run lead thanks to two solo homers off Paul Skenes. Skenes had an excellent start otherwise, allowing just five baserunners through seven stellar innings. Perhaps more importantly, he was also in position to get a win, as the Pirates took a 3-2 lead in the top of the sixth inning on a Ryan O’Hearn three-run blast off Holmes in his first start back from the injured list.
The Bucs also had their horses lined up in the bullpen, as all their best arms had gotten a day of rest the previous day. On eighth-inning duty was Gregory Soto, who has been extremely dependable for a long stretch now. After allowing a leadoff double, he got two outs before Alex Bregman stepped to the plate. Then, Soto completely lost it. The Cubs went HBP, walk, walk, HBP to take the lead against the Pirates, and that was all she wrote. The Bucs weren’t able to strike back in the ninth despite a leadoff single. It was a crushing defeat and a game that the Pirates absolutely should have won.
Game three had a similar vibe to game two. Bubba Chandler took the mound against Matthew Boyd, with both solid arms looking to deliver for their teams. The Bucs struck first on a Bryan Reynolds RBI single in the first inning, but a baserunning mistake by Cruz limited the damage they could’ve caused. Chandler and Boyd were then both unscathed until the fifth inning, when Miguel Amaya smacked a two-run homer off Bubba to give the Cubs the lead.
Thankfully, that lead was short-lived, as the Bucs answered with three runs of their own in the sixth to chase Boyd from the game, highlighted by a Nick Gonzales ground-rule double and a Brandon Lowe pinch-hit single that brought two runners around. Chandler got into some trouble in the bottom of the inning, but Carmen Mlodzinski came in and put out the fire to hold the Cubs to one run. The Pirates entered the late stages of the game with a one-run lead, similar to the day before. However, it went a bit better in this one, as Luke Weaver and Mason Montgomery put the Cubbies to bed with ease in the eighth and ninth, respectively.
Despite the win on Sunday, this was still a sad series. Yes, the Padres keep winning, and the Pirates still would have been more than five games out of playoff position had they won the series, but it still felt like an absolute must-win. Regardless, the Bucs kept themselves at least at the .500 mark as they now look to finish above the Mike Tomlin line for the first time since 2018.
Series MVP is Bryan Reynolds, who wasn’t dominant at the plate but was a consistent engine throughout the weekend with four hits and a home run.
The Bucs get an off day on Monday before traveling back home to face the Brewers, who are already at 93 wins. While it looks like a tough matchup, the last time the Brewers came to PNC in July, the Pirates swept them. The Crew will send Cy Young favorite Jacob Misiorowski to the mound on Tuesday, while the Pirates will likely open with Lake Bachar, who has consistently put them in good positions to win since joining the squad at the deadline. Let’s Go Bucs!
