Final Score: Game 1 Pirates 4 Reds 2
Game 2 Pirates 5 Reds 6 10 innings
Why The Pirates Split: The 1st Game they won because of a good, not great, performance by Mitch Keller, and a clutch 3 run homer by Jared Triolo in the bottom of the 7th. They lost the 2nd game because the bullpen could not protect a two run lead, and they made one of the most horrendous coaching decisions in the bottom of the 8th, when they had a chance to win the game. If the Pirates had lost both games, it would have been easily blamed on poor defense. Every morning from 8-12 somebody should be hitting fly balls to Henry Davis in right field. He definitely needs that much work. From 1-2pm the team needs to go through pop up drills. In the first game the Pirates probably had one of the strangest winning lines of the year, 4 runs, 3 hits, and 2 errors. Even though they did not get charged with any errors in game 2, there were many balls that should have been caught but were not. When the Pirates blow a game like they did in game 2 it is explained away by youthful mistakes. This loss needs to be put right on management's stupidity.
Key Moments Of The Day: The 1st game was Triolo's big home run. The 2nd game boiled down to the bottom of the 8th. The Reds had just tied the game 5-5 in the top of the 8th thanks to another misjudged fly ball by Henry Davis. The bottom of the inning started off just fine for the Pirates with Henry Davis singling and Endy Rodriguez drawing a walk, to put runners on 1st and 2nd with nobody out. This brought Liover Peguero to the plate who was 2-3 with a home run, single and 2 RBI's. The Pirates decided to have him bunt and to do so 3 times to foul bunt out. WHAT THE HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Endy Rodriguez was in such a state of shock that he promptly got picked off 1st base. The Reds walked Triolo, but the inning ended when Ke'Bryan Hayes, pinch hitting, grounded out to short. The Pirates lose the game in 10 innings and instead of getting a sweep, they just handed another game to a team on a silver platter.
Next Game: Tonight, the Mets, in New York. The Pirates embark on a 6 game road trip to face the Mets and the Twins with an off day on Thursday. I really do not know what to expect on this trip. The team went through a very tough schedule over these last 3 weeks and came out right around .500. They battled in every game except for 2 blow out losses to the Brewers and the Reds. I still feel this team could go on a good run yet. I thought they had an excellent chance of sweeping the Reds when this series started. Friday night's performance and this last game were very disappointing to say the least. I am not optimistic but let's hope this coaching staff wakes up. The most disconcerting thing to me is that this team does not seem to learn from it's mistakes. I guess, if nothing else, it will be interesting the rest of the way.
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