Pirates fall to Indians with 2 close reviews

PITTSBURGH -- When the ball boomed off Carlos Santana’s bat toward the left-field rotunda at PNC Park, seemingly everyone -- including Santana -- thought it was veering foul. Santana took a few steps backward then only sauntered a few feet out of the batter’s box as his 111.5-mph moonshot sailed a Statcast-projected 442 feet down the line, then he got the signal to keep running.

When did Santana know it was fair? “When the umpire said fair,” he said.

Immediately, the Pirates’ entire infield disagreed with third-base umpire Dan Iassogna’s home run call. Erik González, Kevin Newman and Adam Frazier all waved toward the left-field seats, believing the ball hadn’t stayed fair. Catcher John Ryan Murphy thought the same, as did the people in Pittburgh’s dugout on the third-base side at PNC Park. But the homer off lefty reliever Sam Howard stood as called after a nearly three-minute replay review in the 10th inning Tuesday night, and the Bucs went on to lose to the Indians, 6-3, their 15th defeat in 19 games this season.

• Box score

“That’s definitely a hard way to go down, no doubt about it,” Newman said. “We’ve got to put it past us, come back tomorrow and really fight to get back in the win column, for sure.”

The Pirates’ telecast on AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh eventually offered an angle from right field that appeared to show the ball sailing to the left of the foul pole, seemingly proof that Santana’s home run should have been called a foul ball. But perhaps unsurprisingly, opinions afterward were clearly divided along team lines: The Pirates thought it was foul, while the Indians thought it was fair.

"I thought it was foul. They called it fair on the field,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “From our angle, we thought it was a foul ball. Murphy thought it was foul. González thought it was foul. They called it fair."

Said Sandy Alomar Jr., who’s filling in for Cleveland manager Terry Francona: “From what I saw, it looked like it was hugging the foul pole on the fair side and then away on the foul side, but it was too far up there to tell. But it seemed to me like it was a fair ball.”

Added Newman, who was at shortstop: “I definitely don’t have as good of an angle -- I’ll start with that -- as the umpire did. But from my angle, it definitely looked foul.”

And Tribe reliever Nick Wittgren, who was in the visitors' dugout: “Looking where that ball hit, I definitely think it was fair.”

It was called fair, and the ruling stood after a crew-chief review. The Pirates had another chance in the bottom of the 10th, putting runners on the corners with one out, but Gregory Polanco and González went down swinging against lefty Brad Hand.

“We have to figure ways to finish games out. We got to figure out ways to execute,” Shelton said. “That’s something that we have to continue to get better at and continue to work on. We’re making games close and coming back, but we have to figure out a way to finish ‘em.”

• Notes: Bashlor, Mears recalled; Ríos to IL

Santana’s fair-or-foul homer was the second time in the final two innings of Tuesday’s game that the Pirates felt they were on the wrong end of a replay review.

Leading off the ninth with the game tied at 3, Jarrod Dyson reached on a grounder that Santana couldn’t corral. Wittgren tried to force him out at second on Jacob Stallings’ sacrifice bunt, but the speedy Dyson beat Wittgren’s throw, leaving runners at first and second for the top of the order.

Dyson was picked off, however, with Adam Frazier at the plate attempting to drop a sacrifice bunt called from the dugout. Cleveland catcher Roberto Pérez double-pumped before his throw, which Dyson appeared to beat. The replay official could not determine that Dyson’s hand touched the bag before he was tagged by Francisco Lindor, however, so the call on the field stood and Dyson trotted back to the dugout.

• Fan dives into Allegheny for foul ball

Frazier flied out and Newman promptly slapped a single to left that might have scored Dyson, then Josh Bell went down swinging to strand a pair of runners and send the game to extra innings.

Once again, the view of that call differed between dugouts.

“We had [Dyson’s] back hand getting on the bag. I know Lindor’s foot was in front of the bag for the first hand,” Shelton said. “We thought on the back side that he got his hand on the bag."

“The main thing with Lindor -- I don’t know, for some reason [Dyson’s] hand got stuck in his shoes,” Alomar said. “He wasn’t trying to block it. He just happened to be there, and that was a huge play.”

It’s easy, and not entirely inaccurate, to pin the result of Tuesday’s game on the outcome of those two replay reviews. But the Pirates also wasted other opportunities, going 3-for-13 with runners in scoring position and stranding 11 runners as a team.

The Bucs pride themselves on their ability to stay in the fight and keep games close, but with nearly one-third of their season complete, they have too often come out on the wrong end of those fights.

“We’re continuing to fight every time that we go out there. We give ourselves a chance to win every time. Unfortunately, sometimes the results don't go our way,” said veteran left-hander Derek Holland, who worked two scoreless innings out of the bullpen. “But it's showing that as a young team -- maturing, fighting, continuing to keep plugging away and not giving up is something you can look forward to.

“We’ve got a lot of young talent. They’re plugging away. They're trying to do everything they can to learn from what they're doing and make those adjustments. They keep fighting. That's the big positive.”