Pirates lose home opener on an 11th-inning passed ball

Nick Kingham is 27 years old and has played baseball at many levels for most of that time.

But what happened in the 11th inning of the Pirates’ home opener Monday at PNC Park is something that rarely has occurred to him in any of his games. And after it cost the Pirates a 6-5 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, Kingham vowed it never will happen again.

The Pirates already had lost a 4-0 lead they had built through six innings and a 5-4 advantage in the ninth with closer Felipe Vazquez on the mound. But they looked to have an edge when Steven Brault retired the first two batters in the top of the 11th. Then, he gave up a single to Paul DeJong, hit pinch hitter Matt Wieters with a pitch and walked Yadier Molina. At that point, Kingham — the ninth Pirates pitcher of the day and the last reliever in the bullpen — got the call.

He threw a pitch catcher Francisco Cervelli wasn’t expecting, the ball squirted away from him and DeJong raced home. Cervelli was expecting a breaking pitch of some sort, and Kingham threw a fastball.

“He thought I was throwing a different pitch than what I threw,” Kingham said. “I threw a heater, and he thought it was something that would be breaking, off-speed of some sort and it dipped.

“Just a misunderstanding, which is really, really unfortunate for everybody.”

It has happened so infrequently to Kingham he could count the other times.

“The third time maybe in my whole life,” he said. “I’ll do my best to not ever let that happen again. We’ll have a better understanding going forward.”

Cervelli blamed himself.

“That situation, I thought it was a slider coming and he threw a fastball,” he said. “That’s on me. He put it on me. I owe him.”

In the end, the game before a crowd of 37,336 was one the Pirates (1-2) would prefer to forget. After a good start by Chris Archer — five shutout innings and eight strikeouts in 20 batters faced — the bullpen allowed five runs in the final five innings.

Overall, the Pirates gave away too many “free 90s,” according to manager Clint Hurdle. He was referring to his team’s two errors, eight walks, three hit batters, two wild pitches and a passed ball that led to two unearned runs, one that tied the score when shortstop Erik Gonzalez booted Paul Goldschmidt’s grounder to open the ninth.

“When you play the game and you don’t play well enough to win and you know that, you just move on from it,” Hurdle said.

“Sometimes, the game speeds up on you a little bit,” first baseman Josh Bell said. “Just rinse it off and bounce back the next game.”

After the Pirates lost their lead, Colin Moran homered off reliever Mike Mayers to lead off the eighth and break a 4-4 tie.

But closer Vazquez gave away the lead in the ninth on pinch hitter Jose Martinez’s RBI double after Gonzalez’s error.

Much earlier in the day — the game took 4 hours, 50 minutes to play— Archer pitched well enough to win most games if the bullpen, an anticipated strength, does its job.

Kyle Crick had no trouble in a perfect sixth inning. But with a 16-inning scoreless streak by Pirates pitchers on the line, Rich Rodriguez didn’t help himself and got no help from his infield in the seventh.

First, Rodriguez hit Dexter Fowler before giving up a home run to Kolten Wong. It was the second home run allowed by Rodriguez in as many outings, dating to Thursday in Cincinnati.

After an infield single by Harrison Bader, pinch-hitter Tyler O’Neill hit an apparent double-play grounder to third baseman Moran, who booted it for an error. Francisco Liriano was called in to pitch to left-handed leadoff hitter Matt Carpenter, but he walked him to load the bases.

Next up was Keone Kela, who walked Goldschmidt after getting ahead 0-2. But Kela pitched out of the bases-loaded, no-out jam by getting DeJong to fly out to center field and striking out cleanup hitter Marcell Ozuna and Molina.

When the Cardinals tied the score in the eighth against Nick Burdi, Vazquez ended that threat by striking out Carpenter.

In the Pirates’ first inning, Moran, who started at third base because Jung Ho Kang was 1 for 9 against Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright, doubled down the right-field line to score Starling Marte and Cervelli. Wainwright walked three in the inning, and everybody scored. The first run scored when leadoff hitter Adam Frazier crossed the plate on a ground ball by Bell.

The Pirates added a run in the third on Bell’s sacrifice fly but squandered a prime opportunity in the seventh when Cervelli grounded out to end the inning with the bases loaded.

All three Pirates runners reached base without a hit, starting with center fielder Bader dropping pinch-hitter JB Shuck’s fly ball. Corey Dickerson walked and Bell was hit by a pitch before Cervelli grounded out.

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