Unlucky Pirates unable to build momentum after Cruz's near-homer was robbed

ARLINGTON – One line from Carmen Mlodzinski summed up the Pirates’ feelings well following a 5-1 loss to the Rangers on Tuesday at Globe Life Field.

“I just don’t think it was our night tonight as a team,” he said.

No, it wasn’t.

Before the game, the Pirates had two lineup regulars out with minor injuries. Then in the game, they saw a potential three-run home run by Oneil Cruz robbed by the Rangers’ Evan Carter. They couldn’t convert an out on a grounder to third after the ball got stuck in Nick Yorke’s glove. And they couldn’t rally back in the late innings.

“That’s the game we signed up for. You do everything right and still fall short,” Yorke said. “Tip your cap to them. They made some nice plays. Come back tomorrow, try to win.”

The Pirates were within striking distance, trailing 2-1 going into the fifth inning. Jake Mangum singled with one out and then Konnor Griffin reached on an error by Rangers shortstop Corey Seager. Both runners advanced on an infield groundout by Henry Davis.

That brought up Cruz, who sent Kumar Rocker’s 2-2 sinker to deep left-center field. With a .950 expected batting average, the ball appeared destined for the Pirates bullpen beyond the fence, but Carter made a spectacular leaping catch to rob it. Instead of a 4-2 lead, the Pirates still trailed 2-1.

“That’s a heckuva play by Carter there,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said. “Oneil put a heckuva swing on that ball, really brought three runs back. It was a big moment in the game.”

The Pirates never regained momentum.

The Rangers pulled away with three runs in the bottom of the fifth, knocking out Mlodzinski with back-to-back RBI hits by Ezequiel Duran and Seager. It was a disappointing outing for Mlodzinski, who threw six scoreless innings out of the bullpen in his previous appearance vs. the Nationals on Wednesday.

Mlodzinski struggled with his fastball command much of the night, adding that he was “fighting my body the whole game.”

“Definitely grinded through it, never gave up in a sense,” he said. “I just wasn’t able to execute in the fifth inning when I really needed to give the team a chance to win.”

Mlodzinski expanded on the mindset and momentum shift following Carter’s catch, saying: “There’s big momentum there after a really good defensive play. You have to have some awareness of that, right? You have to be aware, the crowd is really into it, that was kind of a game-saving play in a sense for them, so there’s a little bit of momentum on their side. You just have to try to do whatever you can to try to limit that. Just wasn’t able to do it tonight.”

Wilber Dotel relieved Mlodzinski, and immediately induced a ground ball to third from Jake Burger. But the ball ended up getting stuck in Yorke’s glove, a first for Yorke.

“Nothing like that’s ever happened to me,” Yorke said. “Just one of those things, you do everything right and didn’t get the result you want.”

Two batters later, the Rangers extended their lead to 5-1 on an RBI groundout by Josh Jung.

The Pirates had three baserunners reach in three of the final four innings, but none advanced past first. They fell to 1-6 when trailing after six innings, 1-8 when trailing after seven, and 0-7 when trailing after eight. The one run was their fewest since a 5-0 shutout loss to the Padres on April 6.

“I thought that we continued to have pretty good at-bats,” Kelly said. “I do think that was a heckuva play [by Carter] in that moment. It’s a huge swing there when you’re talking about three runs and going from [down] 2-1 to being up 4-2.”