Cole Brilliant But Bucs Bats Fizzle In 1-0, Ninth-Inning Loss

Cole Train gave up a couple of first-inning walks but got a DP to clean it up, then had a chat between innings with ump Paul Nauert regarding a tightly squeezed strike zone. The second wasn't much prettier; Ian Happ almost had a splashdown on the Allegheny on the fly, but an ump review confirmed it was a loud foul. He K'ed, but the Cubs got another walk and infield hit before the inning ended. The Bucs made some noise in the fourth when with two on and two out, Jordy lasered a ball toward left, but a leaping Kris Bryant snared the shot to shut it down. By the sixth, Cole Train had retired 13 straight Cubbies. The Pirates finally threatened with Cutch and Freeser leading off with hits, but a Joey O DP took the blush off the bloom. Like Jordy, he lasered an at 'em ball, this one to Baez, who caught Andrew off the bag. The seventh went quietly with Hector Rendon taking over from Quintana, who pitched well and caught a break or two from the baseball gods.

Gerrit was brilliant tonight (photo Dave Arrigo/Pirates)

Cole Train worked the eighth, stranding a two-out knock before Pedro Strop came in for Chi-town. He walked J-Lup, but with two out Jordan was cut down by a mile going to second in either a delayed steal gone bad or a hit-and-run w/o the hit. With the 3-4-5 hitters (Bryant-Rizzo-Happ) for Chicago due up in the ninth, Clint made the curious call of sending in Daniel Hudson rather than Felipe Rivero. Rizzo drew a walk that Joey Votto would be proud of, taking a couple of pitches that could easily have rung him up. Leonys Martin ran for him and stole second.With two outs, Huddy fell behind Alex Avila 3-1, gave him a fastball down the middle and Avila ripped it to right for a triple and 1-0 Cub lead. Wade Davis made it stand up.

Clint made another of his peculiar pitching decisions that didn't pan out and the Pirates actually hit a few balls on the nose, but mama said there'd be nights they wouldn't fall, and this was one of them. All in all, a pretty well pitched ballgame that was pretty poorly umped. That's always a poser in September - is the ump having an off day or is the contending team getting a benefit of the doubt that the non-contender doesn't? Ah well, the robots are sharpening their algorithms as we speak, lol...

Notes:

• This was one of Cole's all-time primo outings. He went eight IP, giving up two hits (broken bat lob job, infield single) with four walks and eight Ks after 108 tosses.
• Freeser had a knock and a walk; he was the only Pirate to reach base twice.
• El Coffee, Fraze and George Kontos could all come off the DL before the weekend. Although their status is still TBD, Polanco & Frazier are running bases while Kontos has navigated a sim game. We'd not rush Polanco, obviously, but are kinda curious how Clint's gonna stir the lineup with Frazier, J-Lup and Mad Max, especially as the Three Amigos will be reunited in the pasture. Cervy is in a holding pattern with his quad while J-Hay is out for the rest of the campaign.
• Aha, the plot thickens. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweets that the Cards were not the team that originally claimed Juan Nicasio; apparently the Redbirds recently getting back into the race triggered their deal w/Philly. Rosenthal says the claiming club is unknown, tho @ASaunders_PGH of Pirates Prospects says it was - who else - the Cubs.
• 17,067 braved the chill to catch tonight's game.