Whether it’s shortened starts by the rotation or allowing big innings by the bullpen is a chicken-or-egg question, but the Pittsburgh Pirates continue to have a problem with their pitching.
An inefficient Braxton Ashcraft lasted only five innings for the second consecutive start, and the Miami Marlins turned a tied game into a blowout by beating up on rookie relievers Wilber Dotel and Antwone Kelly for a combined six runs.
Behind a quality start by Sandy Alcantara, who had seven strikeouts in eight innings, the Marlins continued their tear by rolling to an 8-3 win Friday night before 19,587 at PNC Park.
Although both teams are now 35-35, they are trending in opposite directions. Miami has won six consecutive and nine of its last 10, but the Pirates suffered their sixth loss in seven games after being swept at Atlanta and losing two of three to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“We have to find a way,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said. “They’re playing well. We have to find a way to bounce back, get back. In that Dodgers series, I thought our offense was doing a really good job with our approach. Alcantara was good tonight, kept us off-balance. We need to get back to that tomorrow.”
Where Alcantara averaged 98.7 mph on his four-seam fastball, which touched triple digits, his command controlled the game. He threw strikes on 70 of his 102 pitches, got 20 called strikes and 11 whiffs while living on the edges of the plate and at the bottom of the strike zone to hold the Pirates to five hits and one walk.
“Made it extremely tough,” Kelly said. “We just did not get much going offensively.”
Ashcraft allowed two runs on five hits and two walks with four strikeouts but threw 90 pitches in five frames. In a 6-3 loss at Atlanta, he gave up six runs on nine hits in five innings on June 6.
Dotel was rocked by the Marlins for four runs on four hits and three walks in 1 2/3 innings, and Kelly surrendered two runs on two hits and one walk in 2 1/3 innings. It was the second consecutive disastrous outing for Dotel, who followed Paul Skenes and allowed five earned runs on five hits and one walk in the seventh inning of a 12-3 loss to the Dodgers on Tuesday.
The Pirates got good news when catcher Endy Rodriguez, who was removed from Wednesday’s game against the Dodgers with left hip discomfort, did not require a stint on the injured list. Rodriguez missed the 2024 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery and most of last season with hand and elbow injuries.
“That was a big relief, for the team and for Endy,” Kelly said before the game. “With the injuries he’s had the last couple of years, he’s been through it. The scariest part for him and any player is when you feel something like that, you do not want to go on the IL.”
Rodriguez hit a leadoff double to right field in the third inning, advanced to third on Jake Mangum’s groundout and scored on a single to left by Jared Triolo to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead.
The Marlins scored twice against Ashcraft to take the lead in the fifth. Javier Sanoja drew a leadoff walk, advanced to third on Liam Hicks’ double to left and scored on a groundout to short by Otto Lopez. Kyle Stowers followed with a single to right to score Hicks for a 2-1 edge.
But Rodriguez started the bottom of the fifth by sending Alcantara’s 0-1 cutter 393 feet to right-center for his second home run to tie the game at 2-2. Instead of serving as a rallying point, it only preceded another bullpen blowup.
Dotel replaced Ashcraft in the sixth and gave up a double and a walk, but stranded runners on first and third. The Marlins started the seventh with a Hicks walk, Lopez bunt for a single and a Stowers walk to load the bases before Xavier Edwards drove in Hicks with a sacrifice fly for a 3-2 lead. It only got worse from there. Lopez scored when Heriberto Hernandez singled off the glove of third baseman Nick Gonzales and into left field, and Owen Caissie drove in two runs with a double off the center-field wall to make it 6-2.
“The walks bit us there in the seventh inning: Walk, bunt base hit, then another walk,” Kelly said. “At the beginning of the outing, it looked like his fastball velocity was down a little bit. He regained some of that throughout the outing. It just looked like the command was not there.”
Kelly, a 22-year-old right-hander from Aruba is ranked the Pirates’ No. 7 prospect by MLB Pipeline, relieved Dotel to make his major league debut and escaped further damage by getting Joe Mack to pop up to short. But Sanoja drilled a leadoff double down the left-field line to open the eighth and Hicks hooked an 0-2 changeup 390 feet to right for his 13th home run and an 8-2 Marlins lead.
“Just try to save my teammate, try to help him get out, and so that was my job, that was my mentality,” Kelly said. “Just get in, get out.”
Alcantara retired the side in order on eight pitches in the sixth and seventh innings before Brandon Lowe drove a 1-0 changeup 391 feet to right-center for his 17th homer to cut it to 8-3 in the eighth.
“It’s frustrating,” Ashcraft said. “I think just the all-encompassing way of explaining it is it just boils down to execution. If you don’t execute, at-bats get extended, innings get extended, pitch count gets up and you don’t allow yourself to go deep into games. And that’s the beginning, middle and end to that story.”