Bucs pull off three comebacks, but sloppy play proves costly in loss to Nats

PITTSBURGH – The Pirates found themselves with their backs up against the wall, trailing on four separate occasions in the back half of Thursday’s series finale against Washington. The Bucs found a way to dig themselves out three of those times, but still ended up falling one hit short, and the metal mistakes ultimately cost them dearly in an 8-7 loss in 10 innings at PNC Park.

Jake Mangum came up to bat with runners at first and third and one out in the 10th inning, but grounded into a game-ending, 6-3 double play.

“I think that speaks to the fight of the team, and I’m really proud of that,” manager Don Kelly said. “We have to play cleaner baseball, but the way that we continued to battle throughout the entire game and had a chance there at the end, too, just speaks to the fight and resilience of the team, and how we were able to stay in it even though we weren't playing our best baseball.”

Just an inning earlier, Mangum scored the game-tying run after reaching base with a leadoff walk before stealing second base. He reached third on a fielder’s choice, and scored the game-tying run on a two-out, two-strike infield single by Brandon Lowe.

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Earlier in the game, with right-hander Braxton Ashcraft on the mound, a hit-by-pitch, double and walk loaded the bases for the Nationals in the fifth in what ended up being a disaster of an inning defensively for Pittsburgh. After Ashcraft struck out James Wood for the first out, the Nationals scored three runs on a ball hit up the middle off the bat of Luis García Jr. Instead of taking the out at first, Pirates rookie shortstop Konnor Griffin attempted to record the force out at second himself, before spinning and firing an errant throw intended for first base into the ground. To make matters worse, Ashcraft sailed a ball into the outfield on a pickoff attempt at second base during the very next at-bat, leading to the fourth Nationals run of the game.

Those were just two of the Pirates’ four errors in the game.

“We continue to have conversations, work on it in between games,” Kelly said. “For the most part, we played pretty well. We’re going to continue to work every single day on cleaning those things up. Defense, baserunning, it's going to be the little things.”

Trailing 4-0 in the bottom of the fifth inning, the Pirates made it a game once again. Oneil Cruz drove in the Pirates’ first run of the game with an RBI double to right field, measured at 119 mph off the bat, per Statcast, the hardest hit ball of the season. Moments later, Marcell Ozuna hammered a 423-foot three-run blast off the rotunda in left field. The home run seemed a few days in the making, as the designated hitter had four hits in the prior three games, including a number of hard-hit balls.

Ozuna seems to be inching closer to form.

“That was great,” Kelly said. “He swung the ball well today, even the ball to left field [when] he lined out. He’s been having much better at-bats, as we’ve seen. He’s put in a lot of work to get to this point.”

Griffin soon made up for his costly error in his sixth-inning at-bat, hammering a triple off the top of the outfield wall in center field. The 19-year-old missed his first career home run by a matter of inches, but tied the game nonetheless, driving in Joey Bart all the way from first base. Nick Gonzales put the Pirates ahead, momentarily, for the first time later in the frame with a single to right field.

While the loss was a missed opportunity for Pittsburgh to take a series over an early sub-.500 team, there are still positives to be taken from it as part of the maturation process of a young team.

“That was a good team we were playing, but man, we had them pretty much every game,” Griffin said. “We could have swept that series. We’ve just got to continue to finish games and just continue to do our jobs.”