Pirates can’t seem to pull a W on the road, Fall to the Mets 6-2

It’s been a rough year for Morton, the Bucs, as they are swept by the Mets and drop to 50 games under .500 with the 6-2 loss on a rainy Thursday night in Queens.

Yes, you read that correctly. The Pirates’ record is 48-98. The huge problem is the lack of wins on the road this season. 

After finishing 1-6 during this two-city road stop in Cincinnati and New York, the Pirates road record is 15-59. There are only seven more road games left this season and you can only hope things don’t get worse.

Why is it so hard for the Pirates to win on the road this season? That is the question no one can figure out. It’s mind blowing how few games they have been able to win.

What’s Ryan Doumit’s take?

“I don’t know,” catcher Ryan Doumit replied to the latter question in yet another quiet clubhouse. “We’ve got to learn how to win. Right now, we don’t know how to win. We don’t have that killer instinct. We don’t have that … I don’t know. I don’t really have the words. It’s frustrating.”

 

What is done differently at home vs away from PNC Park? (The Bucs are 33-39 at home this season) 

“We’ve looked at youth, we’ve looked at travel, we’ve looked at changing lifestyle, food … it’s just the same,” Russell said. “We’ve played some bad games on the road. I’m not going to lie. But we’ve also played some good games, been close a lot. One pitch, one extra hit, and all that can change quickly. But we can do all the studies, and none of that’s going to matter until we win.”

 

The losses are tough on the players, but they continue to go out everyday and play hard.

“It’s tough, but we’re playing hard and that’s all we can keep doing,” Jones said. “We can’t focus on the wins and losses. We’ve just got to keep trying to play hard and try to win.”

 

Take a deep breath and read through these stats pretty quickly:

  • The Pirates’ 59 road losses tie the franchise’s modern record — post-1900 — set in 1985, when they were 22-59 away from Three Rivers Stadium.

    • The Pirates are one road loss away from becoming the first team in all Major League Baseball with 60 since the 1963 Mets, who went 17-64. The final seven games of this season are in St. Louis and Miami.

    • The Pirates’ .202 road winning percentage is the majors’ sixth-worst in the modern era, the worst being the .167 of the 1935 Boston Braves, who went 13-65

    Pittsburgh -Post Gazette

 

Charlie Morton pitched five innings giving up two runs on five hits. Morton struggled with his command and walked four batters while striking out just one.

“I made one bad pitch,” Morton said. “I hung a changeup and it got hit and two runs scored.”

“I feel like if I had been more aggressive, things would have turned out better and I would have been able to go deeper in the game,” Morton said. “I put myself in those bad situations by not being aggressive early and not making guys hit the ball. I would much rather have given up four more hits as opposed to those four walks. You’d like to make guys earn their way on the bases.”

There are some positives from his outing though, his ERA dropped to 8.61 –the lowest it has been all season. He also has been working on a few things with his delivery, which are slowly paying off.

“He wasn’t quite as sharp as his last outing, but it was still progress,” Russell said. “He kept us in the game. He got out of a couple jams. He did what he needed to do to get through it.”

 

The Bullpen let the Mets run away with the win after allowing four runs through three innings.   

 

 

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