What one act ultimately cost this ball game for the Pirates? Despite more than 10 miscues, errors, blunders, and weird events, the ultimate failure belongs to the Pirates game plan who – for some bizarre off the wall reason – decided to deploy an obscene infield shift against one-half the Cardinals batters leaving one – quarter to one-third of the infield unprotected.  Take a look:

First inning..  Schumaker struck out, Ludwick singled through the shift, Pujols lined out sharply into the shift to Cedeno, Holliday then ground a soft one to Cedeno and he wasn’t able to come up with it. Freese then walked and Molina came up with the bases loaded and ground one thru second with the shift on scoring two. After Rasmus ground out to Aki without the shift to end the inning, Duke had watched 7 batters come to the plate producing four ground ball outs hit right at ordinary positions, one line drive which would have been a single if hit, a walk, and one strike out. If you’re keeping track, that’s six outs in the inning.

Second inning went 1-2-3.

Third inning..  Duke allowed a well-hit double to Holliday into the right center field gap and shut down everyone else.

Fourth inning.. Molina opened with a sharp grounder near the line LaRoche was able to dive and knock down but then he threw wildly from the ground pulling Jones off the bag and the very slow running Molina was safe. Rasmus then singled thru the right side without the shift, Carpenter then struckout trying to sacrifice, Ryan popped up to short, and Schumaker struckout to strand two.

Fifth inning.. 1-2-3-4 inning with Holliday the lone hit from a flair into shallow center.

Sixth.. Molina ground a soft one to LaRoche who started to charge it hard then backed off a bit and then he threw wildly to first yet again. Rasmus then flied out, Carpenter laid down a sac bunt moving Molina to second, and Schumaker — with no shift on — ground one up the middle scoring Molina.

Seventh.. Pujols popped up to short, Holliday lined one into right for a single, and Freese crushed a rocket down the third base line that LaRoche somehow managed to stop taking away extra bases. So with men at first and second and one out, John Russell went to his bullpen and grabbed Carrasco. Up to the plate steps Molina and what do you think he did? That’s right, ground one to ordinary second with Aki shifted so the ball went into right, Church came up with it and fired a bullet to Doumit, the throw came in high so Doumit was in the air as Holliday started his slide, Doumit came down and tagged Holliday out as he never touched home despite being there well before the ball was. In essence, Holliday’s decision to not take Doumit out cost the Cards a run — not the Pirates shift which had allowed the opportunity.

Eighth with Meek in.. 1-2-3-4 inning with Jay lining a single to right as the only damage.

Ninth with Meek.. Pujols flied out to right, Holliday lined a single into right, Freese struck out, and Molina came to the plate with Mather running at first for Holliday. With Molina up, the bench called for a pitch out and Mather was running on the play, Doumit got the ball and threw a rather slow shot to Aki who was waiting, and Aki laid the mitt down to the dirt and that was that. Unfortunately, Aki — who had the ball well before Mather slid — didn’t bother to tag the runner and he was safe. I’m sure you’re guessing what happened in Molina’s at bat.. yep, he lined one into right scoring Mather and that would end up being the winning run.

So since the shift was directly responsible for two hits which became runs, that’s why I’m calling out the Pirates front office for blowing this game. They need to take the responsibility for the bonehead shift. There were a lot of other problems too, but everything else was handled. Plus, it just doesn’t make sense to overshift the second baseman to about the bag against veteran bat handlers with a guy on the mound who can only touch 88 and needs to pitch away to survive. That’s beyond stupidity to me.

Without the shift, the Bucs win this game all things being equal. I assume here that Huntington had to approve the shift so that’s why I’m calling him out. If he didn’t and Garcia and Russell did it on their own, I’d be shocked.

On offense we were a mess against a very hittable version of Chris Carpenter. In the fourth Jones opened with a double and later in the inning Milledge picked him up with a solid knock to center cutting the Cards lead to one. But then it seemed like the bottom fell out.

In the fifth, Duke ground out leading off, Aki struck out on a dropped third and didn’t even bother to run it out, LaRoche singled deep in the hole at short, and with Cutch up at the plate on a 1-2 count, LaRoche took off for second like he was going to steal the bag on Carpenter and Molina. He was obviously out by a country mile and all I could think of was that he and Garcia must have thought there was a hit and run on. Cutch didn’t offer at all.

In the sixth with the Cards up 3-1 now, Cutch opened with a single, Jones struck out, and then Doumit muscled a line drive over Rasmus’ head in center for a double easily scoring McCutchen and, once again, cutting the lead to one. I have to hand it to Doumit there – that was a pretty swing and it’s starting to look like he’s coming back around. Unfortunately, both Church and Milledge struck out so the threat was ended.

In the seventh we went down 1-2-3 and that lead to the unbelievable eighth inning from hell.

Motte was in and LaRoche singled on a soft flair to left, Cutch lined a single into right and LaRoche anticipated the ball well and went first to third (great hustle there by the slower LaRoche, btw). LaRussa went and got Motte and brought in Trever Miller. Jones came to the plate and hit a swinging bunt back to Miller who faked a throw to second as LaRoche then broke for home, and then Miller threw to Freese to get LaRoche in a run down. Freeze threw to Molina and LaRoche headed back to third only to meet McCutchen who is also standing on the bag.

So Molina tagged out McCutchen, the umpire yelled “out” pointing at Cutch, but he never left the bag which seemed to confuse LaRoche who stepped off thinking he was the one out (it was his bag as the runner) and Molina tagged him out for the double play. Had LaRoche just stood on the bag, Cutch would have sat down and we would have had one out and men at second and third. Two youthful miscues.. Cutch should have immediately vacated the bag when called out by the ump, and LaRoche should never have left the bag.

Nutshell version – with men at first and third and no outs, a grounder was hit to the pitcher and they turned a double play wiping both lead runners and the batter was left standing at second.  Miller then hit both Doumit and Church and Milledge came up against Franklin and the second pitch went between Molina’s legs allowing Jones to score tying the game. Milledge then ground out.

Tough loss.. very tough.

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Oh ZACH baby!! Dude threw high heat past several Cards batters who chased out of the zone. Good stuff there. Dangerous as all get out, but it worked Friday night. He pitched a great game.. smart game.. significantly better game than the box score suggests.

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Doumit is now 1-22 in throwing out runners and everybody is running on him. His pop times have ranged 1.97 – 2.21 when I checked them so he’s averaging well below average times in his throws.

Interestingly, in the 9th when Meek had two outs and two strikes on the pitcher Franklin, he started showboating a bit on the mound with Doumit by not accepting his signs. Finally Doumit went out and talked to him and the conversation got heated. I assume Meek was upset because both baserunners stole bases in Franklin’s at bat in consecutive pitches. Molina stole third on Meek’s second pitch and Doumit didn’t even bother to throw because Meek never stopped Molina’s secondary lead. And then in the next pitch, Rasmus took off late and then slowed down trying to draw a throw but Doumit held the ball. That’s when Meek got animated, although he struck out Franklin to end the inning.

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Ryan Church with three strike outs all on cutters in under his hands. They were ugly swings too.

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I noticed the Cardinals were speeding the game up on our batters early in the game. As soon as we’d get set in the box, boom – in came the pitch. It worked.. we were sitting flat most of the time.  Let’s watch this and see if it continues.

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Clement is said to be reinventing his swing. A major league batter that needs to reinvent his swing sounds to me like a disaster ready to happen. He absolutely needed some help on recognizing pitches, but ‘reinventing’ a swing???

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Molina called a pretty poor game for him. Several times he had batters on the ropes with specific types of pitches and then came at them with fastballs and we wailed them for hits. Very odd for him.

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Iwamura with an infield hit to short in the third broke his 0 for 20 something slide. Someone please give me one reason why we have a .195 hitter leading off???? How ridiculous. Why this guy isn’t riding pine I’ll never know. Oh wait, there’s 4.5 million reasons why I suppose.

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Is Meek getting fatigued? His arm strength looks to be tanking along with his command.

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Should the Pirates select Manny Machado at 1/2?
Anup Sinha scouted Machado in playoff action Friday night and has his report up over at Bucs Prospects. Go check it out. Pro scout Bob Smith will be picking the Curve up next week for a few games and then an Ex-Phillies pro scout might be picking up some Bradenton games.

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I’m officially off Chris Sale. I’ll let you know who I’m on next week.