PITTSBURGH — At least three times in the past three days, during radio interviews with KDKA and in a conference call with reporters, general manager Neal Huntington has pointed to the Pirates’ bad play against bad teams as a contributor to their sub-.500 record.
He’s right. The Pirates are 3-14 against the Reds, San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants. Had they gone even 9-8 against the trio they’d be 57-48, right with the Chicago Cubs atop the division.
This week they get another crack at it. In the first game of their series against the Reds Tuesday, not much changed during a 9-1 loss at PNC Park after Jameson Taillon got smacked around for the second consecutive start.
Taillon did not finish the fourth inning and allowed eight runs. Six of the Reds’ 11 hits went for extra bases. Two left the park. Taillon also got lit up in his previous start, last week against the Giants. He allowed nine earned runs and nine hits in three innings.
Somehow a leadoff triple by Billy Hamilton and a walk to bring Joey Votto to the plate resulted in only one run in the first. The Reds had already scored one run in the second when Taillon’s throw to second on an attempted force-out was late. Hamilton followed that mistake with a three-run homer.
The Reds had promoted Jesse Winker earlier Tuesday to take the roster spot of Tony Cingrani, who will join Tony Watson in the Los Angeles Dodgers bullpen. Winker hit his first career home run in the fourth. Three more hits followed and Taillon was done.
Half of those 14 losses against the trio of bad teams have come against the Reds, who are now 43-63. lost 14 of 17 after the All-Star break entering this week’s series. Their pitching staff has the worst ERA in baseball and the most home runs allowed; their rotation has thrown the fewest innings in the majors. (The Pirates scored only one run against this staff, in the first inning, which began with Homer Bailey hit Starling Marte with two strikes).
“We would like to improve upon that moving forward because there’s a nice stretch of games in front of us against similar teams that are under .500,” manager Clint Hurdle said.
After the Reds series, the Pirates face the Padres, Detroit Tigers and Toronto Blue Jays.
The Reds are a much different team now than when they previously faced the Pirates. Their three-game sweep at PNC Park in April put them a season-high five games over .500 — at 7-2. When they took three of four the following month, they evened their record at 14-14.
“We played a lot better baseball early in the year, too, and we were getting better and stronger starting pitching,” Reds manager Bryan Price said.
The Pirates went 6 for 46 with runners in scoring position in their first seven games against the Reds, and went 0 for 24 in such situations during the sweep in April.
“I don’t think there’s been as many big scoring games as far as a lot of our victories this year, we’ve had to score a lot,” Price said. “I think the games against Pittsburgh, for whatever reason, resemble a little bit more of the traditional 3-2, 4-3, 5-4 type feel to them.”
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