PITTSBURGH — The opening innings of games have been the Pirates’ bugaboo this season. Entering Wednesday night, the team had a combined 9.53 ERA in the first inning and a combined 9.00 ERA in the second. They’d allowed at least one run during one of the first two innings in 16 of their 17 games.
So, manager Derek Shelton switched things up. He had previously hinted that the Pirates could play with an opener at some point this season, using a reliever to pitch a few innings at the start of games and give the normal starting pitcher a different frame of mind entering the game. On Thursday against the Milwaukee Brewers, he followed through on that thought.
It worked. Left-hander Dillon Peters made his first start of the season against the Milwaukee Brewers, getting through a 1-2-3 first inning throwing just five pitches, then dispatching Milwaukee in order again in the second. He departed after allowing a walk to open the third inning, making way for usual-starter Bryse Wilson. He, too, benefited from the perspective change, pitching four scoreless frames to follow Peters.
In a cruel twist, though, the normally-reliable bullpen let the Pirates down. Right-hander Wil Crowe had pitched 13 1/3 scoreless innings to start the season. On Thursday, he allowed a pair of runs in the seventh. Only one was earned, with a fielding error from first baseman Yoshi Tsutsugo proving costly, but the damage was enough to doom the Pirates anyway, as they lost 3-1.
While the Pirates’ numbers in the first two innings accurately suggest that nearly all of the team’s starters have struggled to begin games, it’s unclear how frequently the team will deploy this strategy again. After all, Wilson was one of the worst early-inning pitchers on the team. In his three previous outings, he had allowed five earned runs in the first inning, good enough for a 15.00 ERA in the opening frame. That number went down gradually as the game wore on, with a 6.00 ERA in the second inning and scoreless efforts in the third and fourth.
The change really did work like a charm for this game. Wilson needed just 59 pitches to get through his four innings of work. That is both the fewest number of pitches he’s thrown in any appearance this season and tied for his second-longest effort.
The only damage anyone did against him came on a sixth-inning double from Brewers second baseman Kolten Wong. It was the Brewers’ first hit of the game, and Wilson bounced right back to strike out the next two batters, Andrew McCutchen and Willy Adames, swinging.
Obviously, in a 3-1 loss, any rough inning from a pitcher can’t be blamed entirely. It took the Brewers 5 1/3 innings to muster a hit against Peters and Wilson, the Pirates didn’t log one against Milwaukee left-hander Aaron Ashby until the sixth inning either. That hit was a ground ball single to from center fielder Bryan Reynolds that bounced off the glove of a diving third baseman. It was the only Pirates hit of the game. A run scored later that inning, when Ke’Bryan Hayes bounced into a double play with runners on the corners and no outs, giving the Pirates a 1-0 lead.
Crowe’s unfortunate seventh erased that lead quickly. He allowed two straight singles to put runners on the corners with nobody out, then a ground ball to Tsutsugo went right under his glove, scoring one. Another single scored the second run before Crowe got out of it with a strikeout, groundout and flyout to the next three hitters.
Left-hander Sam Howard dug the Pirates’ a deeper hole in the ninth, hitting one batter, then walking three more to issue another run to the Brewers. A half-hearted ninth-inning rally from the Pirates, in which they got two men on base via walk, fell short.
With that, the success of Peters’ opening and Wilson’s relief appearance was all for naught, as the Pirates lost their second straight to open their homestand and their fifth straight against the Brewers this season.
