PITTSBURGH — The Pirates should absolutely feel encouraged by what they did against the Houston Astros on Tuesday night, erasing an early deficit before using Ji Hwan Bae’s walk-off home run to atone for a late lead they had let slip away.
However, 24 hours later, the Astros did what most teams of their ilk routinely do: They turned the page and outplayed the Pirates in several facets to claim the series win with a 7-0 victory at PNC Park on Wednesday afternoon.
After the Pirates struggled to elevate the ball against Monday’s starter, Framber Valdez, and then went the other direction by mashing three home runs against Cristian Javier, well, this one sort of boomeranged back to the beginning.
