Bailey Falter was blunt in offering a self-evaluation following his last start Saturday vs. the Yankees, in which he allowed seven earned runs.
“Just can’t happen. It’s unfortunate,” the Pittsburgh Pirates left said after his club fell to New York.
Falter, searching for a different outcome, took the hill Friday in Cincinnati as the Pirates opened a three-game series vs. the Reds at Great American Ball Park.
However, after allowing five runs and walking a career-high five in a 5-3 loss to the Reds, Falter is likely to be similarly displeased.
Falter (0-2, 7.20 ERA) let up only three hits, but his free passes, as well as two wild pitches, spoiled his third start of the season.
He threw 45 of his 79 pitches for strikes, punching out four in the defeat, and the Pirates’ bats were once again quiet, finishing with only four hits.
To begin the game, Falter got himself in a no-outs, bases-loaded jam by walking the first three Reds he faced, TJ Friedl, Blake Dunn and Elly De La Cruz.
Falter managed to get Spencer Steer to ground into a double play for two much-needed outs, but at the cost of Friedl scoring from third, putting Cincinnati up 1-0 early.
Any hope Falter had of limiting the damage soon evaporated as the Reds’ next batter, Jeimer Candelario, connected on a 2-0 fastball for a two-run homer into the left-field stands, giving his club a 3-0 advantage in the bottom of the first.
During the Apple TV broadcast, manager Derek Shelton commented that Falter was “inconsistent in his delivery.”
Cincinnati took a 5-0 lead in the third as a result of a costly mishap by catcher Endy Rodriguez, who began the game at first base but moved behind the plate after starter Joey Bart exited in the second because of low back tightness.
With Spencer Steer at first and De La Cruz at second, Falter delivered a ball in the dirt.
Rodriguez, collecting the ball and firing to Ke’bryan Hayes at third base in an attempt to gun down the advancing De La Cruz, instead missed his mark considerably.
The off-target throw allowed De La Cruz and Steer to score as the ball traveled all the way to the left-field wall.
Both runs went unearned as a result of Rodriguez’s error.
Cincinnati, leading by five at the end of the conclusion of the third inning, had only one hit (Candelario’s home run), but took advantage of the Rodriguez error and Falter’s five walks, which established a career high.
Meanwhile, Singer was dealing early, holding the Pirates (5-9) hitless through 41⁄3 innings.
But in the fifth, the Pirates finally connected off him. Tommy Pham ripped an RBI double down the third-base line for his club’s first hit of the night, scoring Jack Suwinski, who walked, from first.
That got the Pirates on the board 5-1.
But they were not done in the frame, with Adam Frazier making the score 5-3 by hitting his first homer of the year, a two-run shot to right field.
Singer (3-0) would not return for the sixth, having allowed three runs on two hits with three strikeouts and three walks in his five-inning outing, but picked up the win.
Falter also departed after five, and Chase Shugart took over in the sixth, delivering a scoreless inning and recording one out in the seventh before Joey Wentz completed the frame.
Wentz and Shugart combined to throw three innings of scoreless relief.
Though Frazier’s homer in the fifth made their deficit more manageable, the Pirates’ offense puttered out after Singer left the game.
A hit off the left-field wall in the sixth by Rodriguez , who was thrown out at second base, was all the Pirates managed against Cincinnati’s bullpen.
In the ninth, Emilio Pagan shut the door and picked up a save, retiring the Pirates in order.
Note: Per the Pirates, Bart is being evaluated further and is day-to-day.