ARLINGTON — Pirates starter Luis Ortiz threw 92 pitches Monday night time, and practically all of them had been simply advantageous. Ok to win loads of ballgames within the huge leagues, adequate to bolster that the 25-year-old right-hander is a promising a part of the Pirates’ future, greater than enough.
Then there have been the 2 pitches he threw to Corey Seager in a 4-3 loss to the Rangers. These had been offspeed pitches within the middle sq. of the strike zone, middle-middle. They traveled a mixed 849 ft and accounted for all of the runs Ortiz surrendered in his six innings of labor.
“Seager beat us at present,” Pirates supervisor Derek Shelton mentioned. “The 2 residence runs, we didn’t execute pitches. I believed aside from that, Luis threw the ball rather well.”
Certainly, these two pitches overshadowed an in any other case respectable outing through which Ortiz allowed 5 hits, walked one and struck out seven within the opener of a three-game collection at Globe Life Subject.
Though the Bucs outhit the Rangers 7-5, they left seven males on base and had been left with the impression that none of that mattered all that a lot in gentle of these two pitches.
Seager hit his twenty seventh and twenty eighth homers of the season.
“He’s top-of-the-line gamers within the recreation and we made two flat, middle-middle breaking balls to him, and you can’t try this,” Shelton mentioned. “I feel we noticed what occurs while you try this. … Particularly the best way he’s swinging the bat, you simply can’t miss in the course of the plate. He’s going to do harm if that’s the case and he did harm tonight.”
Ortiz acquired to a full depend with Seager within the first inning. Ortiz threw an 89.5-mph cutter proper down the pipe, and Seager hammered it to proper to place the Rangers forward 1-0.
The second, and extra devastating, of the homers Ortiz served to Seager was a first-pitch mistake: an 84.5-mph slider that additionally caught the center of the zone. Seager hit a three-run dart that the Pirates couldn’t totally reply, though they got here shut within the subsequent half-inning when Jared Triolo hit a three-run homer.
Ortiz had confronted Seager thrice earlier than, hanging him out twice and permitting a sacrifice fly on Might 22 of final yr in Pittsburgh.
“My plan in opposition to him and all people is simply assault,” Ortiz mentioned. “Assault him from the start. He took me deep into the depend [on the first homer], and on the finish, I simply tried to make a pitch, and I left it down the center.”
After conferences 4 and 5, the Pirates determined to deliberately stroll Seager when he got here as much as face Ortiz once more within the fifth. Ortiz had struck out the facet within the fourth, however yielded a two-out double to Marcus Semien. That introduced up Seager, who didn’t get to swing the bat in opposition to Ortiz once more.
The Pirates have misplaced 12 of their previous 14 video games. Six of these losses, together with Monday’s, have been one-run defeats.
“Our effort’s been good — I feel that is one factor nobody can query, is our effort’s been good all through the complete yr,” Shelton mentioned.
