It would be easy to dismiss this loss by the Pirates with the wave of a hand. You could say something along the lines of “Well, Charlie Morton was great through five but he kind of ran out of gas in the sixth and by that point the rest of the team was kind of lulled into a false sense of security and failed to back Morton up while an Astros team that really needed a win took advantage,” and you wouldn’t be entirely wrong. Morton obviously ran out of gas in the sixth, but he could’ve gotten out of the inning with the score still close if his defense had helped him. Chase d’Arnaud and Andrew McCutchen and Lyle Overbay melted down behind him, though, and when the top of the sixth ended with the score 5-1, the game was over for all intents and purposes. This happens. The Pirates weren’t going to go 17-1 against the Astros this year and it’s pretty unlikely that the ‘Stros will lose more games than the 105 the Pirates did last year. Charlie Morton’s obviously trying some new things out (he threw his curveball 17 times last night) and Clint Hurdle’s trying to figure out what his limits are as his workload increases, and things didn’t end well. Like I said, it happens.
All of that being said, this game introduced a new type of disappointment, at least for me. The Pirates are in the thick of the NL Central race right now. We can debate all day whether or not they belong there, but I want them to stay in contention for as long as possible. With the Reds jumping out to an early lead over the division-leading Cardinals (one that took them all night to finally close out, which is happening as I type this) and the Brewers recording a win to tie the Pirates for second and the lowly Astros in town, a win would’ve been huge for the Pirates in terms of the bigger 2011 picture. They didn’t get it. While a loss doesn’t drop them into last place or below .500 or even out of contention, it feels like they missed out on a chance to assert themselves in the wide open NL Central. In reality, they either will or won’t do that in the coming weeks. In the short term, though, losing to the Astros last night is disappointing in a way that Pirate losses haven’t been disappointing in quite a while.
