The Pittsburgh Pirates did not arrive in Colorado until 4:10 a.m. Thursday morning for their game against the Rockies, a makeup which broke up a homestand because of a postponed April 28 contest.
It was a long flight to Colorado and quite possibly a longer return flight following an 11-5 loss, which left Sean Rodriguez shaking his head back to the clubhouse.
Jeff Locke took the biggest hit of all, especially to his Earned Run Average as he allowed 11 runs in 4.2 innings of work.
Locke (5-4) threw 101 pitches, and with a tired bullpen, pushed through the struggles he endured on the mound. The start could be looked at in two different lenses.
First was that it was not necessary for Locke to keep getting beat down like he did. Locke was the most rested of any Pirates player on that trip. He was intentionally sent down early so he could perform his best, and he did not do that. He does not have his defenders to blame as the Pirates had no errors. In fact, it was the Rockies who had three errors.
On the other hand, Locke battled. It was not pretty, but he certainly earned a lot of respect from his teammates and that goes a long way.
Locke sacrificed his ERA and likely hundreds of thousands of negative comments to benefit his team.
Both Neftali Feliz and Mark Melancon pitched in each game of the Tuesday doubleheader against the Mets and Jared Hughes had a high pitch count. With such a short turnaround, the bullpen’s availability was unknown, so Locke pushed on.
Instantly, the move to recall Lobstein paid dividends as he pitched 2.1 innings before Cory Luebke pitched the final inning.
Now a taxed team flies back to Pittsburgh and will face the St. Louis Cardinals to boot.
It has been a rough stretch for the Pirates.
On paper, June was supposed to be a tough month but the Pirates fumbled two of the more winnable series. Even though it did win the series against the New York Mets, it had their bullpen set back in a major way,
which leads to wonder if the series should even be considered a win in the first place.
With several challenging opponents, both home and road awaiting, the doable part of the schedule is over and it is concerning. Now, with an extra 3,000 miles under their system in such a short time, the Pirates have to turn back around and face their biggest rival the past few years.
Needless to say, a tough series awaits and the Pirates cannot afford slip-ups.
Up Next
Gerrit Cole (5-4, 2.85 ERA) faces Michael Wacha (2-6, 5.16 ERA). Cole is 5-3 with a 2.91 ERA in nine career regular season starts against the Cardinals.
Of note
The Pirates sent Jameson Taillon back down to Triple A Indianapolis and recalled Lobstein
