Game 6: Snakes Pound McCutchen, Bullpen

John Kruk said it best on Baseball Tonight: The Pirates seem to get beat by giving up five runs here and five runs there. Why not just give up a bunch of runs in one inning? And that’s exactly what they did.

I don’t even know where to begin. The good guys were up 4-2 after 3.5 innings. Then Arizona scored 13 runs off three different pitchers. They sent 16 men to the plate. They hit three homers. They collected eight hits. They left no one on base.

Arizona starter Edwin Jackson, Kelly Johnson and Chris Young all homered in the inning. Young drove in four runs. Catcher Chris Snyder drove in five for the game.

During the fateful fourth, Daniel McCutchen was relieved by Hayden Penn who couldn’t do much. Jack Taschner was the final man in. McCutchen gave up nine runs and got 10 guys out. That’ll harm the ERA. Penn walked three and gave up one hit while retiring one. All four batters that reached while hitting against Penn later scored. Take pi and multiply it by 10 and then you’ll be close to Penn’s ERA on the year. It just isn’t pretty.

Jackson gave up 10 hits and four runs in seven innings. The Pirates got homers from Andrew McCutchen and Bobby Crosby. Delwyn Young, starting at 3B, hit a two run triple.

The Good
Really?

The Bad
Other than the obvious, Garrett Jones was 0-5, lowering his season BA to .208.

The Rest
Arizona has score 15 or more runs in a game 12 times in franchise history. The last time was 7/31/2006.

Jackson won his first start for an NL team since 2005.

Last time a Pirate gave up nine earned runs in one start was Charlie Morton on 8/14/09. Jimmy Anderson gave up nine earned runs twice within the same month in 2001. Ah, the memories of Jimmers!

This was Snyder’s four career five RBI game.

Rusty Ryal, a utility player for the D-Backs, is the son of Mark Ryal who was briefly a Pirate back in 1990. The elder Ryal was apparently defensively challenged. Of the 127 career games he played, he appeared as a pinch hitter in 71 of them. He hit .340 at Edmonton in 1986 and .334 in Buffalo in 1990.

Adam LaRoche, who was hitless on the year coming into the game, collected five knocks in the series.