Joe Musgrove, bullpen struggle in Pirates' loss to Brewers

Clint Hurdle needed only to take a quick glance at the game summary to figure out what ailed his team Thursday night in an 11-5 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers. Actually, for much of this season.

“We’ve given up way more than our share of multiple-run innings,” the Pittsburgh Pirates manager said.

The Brewers scored two or more in four of the nine, breaking open what turned into a close game with a four-run ninth against reliever Richard Rodriguez.

The loss, which dropped the Pirates to 27-28 (2-6 in the past week), was the 10^th this season in which the opponent scored 10 or more runs. The Pirates trail the first-place Chicago Cubs by 4 ½ games in the National League Central and second-place Milwaukee by four.

The culprits Thursday were starter Joe Musgrove, who has allowed 15 runs (14 earned) and 25 hits in his past 17 1/3 innings, and relief pitchers Alex McRae and Richard Rodriguez, both of whom have spent part of this season in Triple-A Indianapolis.

Hurdle remarked that he had few options in his bullpen after playing four games in the previous three days in Cincinnati.

For starters, Musgrove couldn’t solve the Brewers’ predominantly left-handed lineup. They totaled 18 hits, but scored five runs on eight hits in the first three innings.

Musgrove blamed himself for limiting his options.

“It’s really hard to work when you’re behind in the count,” he said. “I’m not able to exit the zone when I need to and get swings. You saw when I executed the pitches, I got the results I needed. It just comes down to execution.”

Musgrove’s last three innings were scoreless, and he ended up with a season-high six strikeouts (tied with consecutive outings in mid-April) while throwing 102 pitches. Hurdle prefers to use those numbers as a basis for finding improvement.

“There was swing and miss that hadn’t been there, only four three-ball counts,” he said. “We have to hunt something good here and, hopefully, he can take what he did in the back end of the game and get it going and create some traction moving forward.

“You saw some finish; you saw some endurance.”

Musgrove said he pitched the last three innings in “survival mode.”

“I’m just trying to compete and give myself a chance to get back in the game,” he said. “With the lineup we have right now and what they’ve been doing offensively, we can get back in the game in a heartbeat.”

After Musgrove left, McRae and Rodriguez were largely ineffective, however, combining to surrender seven hits, four walks and six runs in only three innings. Eric Thames’ home run was the ninth Rodriguez has allowed this season.

“Maybe had some different options, but we put a breaking ball in the middle (of the plate),” Hurdle said. “Put a lot of spin pitches in the middle of the plate against a team that’s really good at hitting. We continually paid for it.”

Overall, the first six batters in the Brewers’ lineup were 16 for 32, with three homers, six doubles and a triple. Mike Moustakas homered twice.

Still, the game was up for grabs into the ninth after the Pirates rallied to cut the lead to 7-5.

It could have been even closer, but they wasted opportunities in the second, fifth and eighth innings.

In the second and fifth, the Pirates stranded two runners each when Adam Frazier, who was dropped from leadoff to No. 8 in the batting order, Musgrove, Josh Bell and Bryan Reynolds made outs to end innings. After the Pirates scored three in the eighth on a two-run double by Melky Cabrera and an RBI single by Cole Tucker, Kevin Newman, the new leadoff hitter, struck out looking.

Again, Hurdle chose to adopt the optimistic viewpoint.

“The game seems like we were so far away, but we weren’t,” he said.

Love baseball? Stay up-to-date with the latest Pittsburgh Pirates news.