Pirates Insider: Turning the tide far more more important than Thursday’s loss

CINCINNATI — Comb through the Pirates’ 3-2 loss to the Reds on Thursday at Great American Ball Park, and you’ll find plenty of storylines. Some were encouraging. Others not so much.

Yohan Ramirez, Hunter Barco and Noah Murdock combined to give the Pirates seven innings of two-run ball. Nick Gonzales turned a terrific double play, Brandon Lowe homered, Endy Rodriguez threw out two runners, and Mason Montgomery delivered one of the nastiest innings for a Pittsburgh reliever all season.

However, Pirates pitchers walked nine, Montgomery didn’t return for the ninth, Gregory Soto struggled, and the offense scored three or fewer runs for the seventh time in the past 12 games.

Here’s where those storylines intersect: Thursday’s loss must be one of those games where one team was simply a hair better. Not a continuation of a larger trend.

It’s on Pirates leadership — their core hitters along with Friday starter Paul Skenes — to reverse the current slide, where Don Kelly’s team has dropped three in a row and eight of 13.

“We’ve been really resilient all season,” Kelly said. “We need to trust in that.

“It does get frustrating. It’s tough. Especially when you lose close games like this, extra innings and tight ones. We need to find a way to come out on top.”

The game ended when Nathaniel Lowe beat out a double-play ball, allowing Elly De La Cruz — who led off the inning with a 115.7 mph double — to score.

Along with falling behind, 2-0, to De La Cruz, Soto’s mistake(s) involved issuing two walks. For the game, Pirates pitchers handed out nine free passes, a total that simply cannot happen.

“We need to be in the zone more,” Kelly said.

Meanwhile, Kelly’s decision to swap Montgomery for Soto will be scrutinized. Montgomery threw just seven pitches and looked electric. But the move was made because Montgomery hasn’t responded particularly well to longer outings.

His 6.52 ERA in July came after two five-out appearances in late June. (He also allowed two earned runs in two-thirds of an inning on May 30.)

After returning for a second inning twice in three May appearances, he faltered May 19 at St. Louis, allowing three runs (two earned) without recording an out.

“Just felt like him going two, even though the pitch count was low, would have residual effects down the road,” Kelly said.

Maybe Kelly should’ve chanced it, maybe not.

Either way, Soto can’t load the bases there. It was also a mostly forgettable night at the plate against a pitcher (Rhett Lowder) the Pirates should’ve handled better.

On May 2, the Pirates scored eight earned runs in 1 1/3 innings against Lowder. Not only that, he was allowing an .851 OPS to lefties compared to a mark of .673 when facing right-handed hitters, something that should’ve created an advantage.

It did not.

Bryan Reynolds, Esmerlyn Valdez and Ryan O’Hearn — the heart of the order — went one for 12 with a double and three strikeouts.

Pittsburgh was also one for seven with runners in scoring position and stranded eight.

Although he hit his 23rd homer of the season in the sixth, Lowe struck out with the bases loaded to end the seventh, one of only two innings where the Pirates had multiple baserunners

“Our offense can do better, and we know that,” Nick Gonzales said.

Speaking of Gonzales, he had two more hits to increase his season average to .316. He’s hitting .384 in July, best in the Majors, while this represented his 43rd multi-hit game of the season. No Pirate has more hits in a calendar month than Gonzales (38) since Adam Frazier tallied 40 in May 2021.

But whether it was that, Yohan Ramirez striking out four over two scoreless innings to open or Barco and Murdock dancing between raindrops, the Pirates weren’t able to turn a few positive stories into a win.

That’ll happen over the course of 162. The trick involves not letting that frustration become something more.

Kelly’s club has done a good job of that thus far. Their last losing streak of more than three games came in early June; they have just three such slides all season.

On an eight-game trip against division opponents and facing a brutal August where the Pirates will play 18 of 30 games on the road, the challenge becomes forgetting about the minutiae from Thursday and turning the page.

“We’ll see how [Friday] goes,” Kelly said. “They’ve bounced back well. Our work was good today. We were prepared. I thought we competed. Had opportunities to score. We just need to stay with it and trust ourselves and keep on going.”

Jason Mackey: Jason.Mackey@pirates.com and @JMackey_PGH on X.