MILWAUKEE -- The Pirates' bullpen battled to stay in the game after a short outing from Trevor Williams, but fielding miscues, timely hitting on the Brewers part and a late knock from Orlando Arcia would be too much to overcome, losing, 6-5, at Miller Park Monday.
Four of those runs, including Arcia's game-winning single in the eighth, game with two outs.
That was a common theme throughout the four-game series, of which the Brewers took three. They scored 23 runs in total, and 16 game with two outs.
"When teams are able to do that, it puts the pressure on the pitchers," Williams said. "It’s a race to three outs every inning. That third out is sometimes the most elusive one."
In the Arcia example, Chris Stratton got ahead in the count early and then went with back-to-back sliders, the second of which hung on the outside part of the plate. Arcia would end up pulling it through the left side of the infield.
Derek Shelton defended going with consecutive sliders, saying the issue wasn't in the pitch calling, but the execution.
"We executed really good breaking balls earlier in the count," Shelton said. "Then whatever it is, if guys try to spin it too much or try to execute too good a pitch, then we overthrow it and leave it in the middle of the plate. That’s just something we have got to get better at."
The Pirates also had problems in the field, too. Three of the Brewers' runs came on fielding miscues, including the first two of the game.
After loading the bases to open the bottom of the second, Williams appeared to get out of the frame when he got a two-out bouncer to second baseman Kevin Newman. However, he misplayed the bounce, but still kept it in front of him and got a throw off. While it hit off Colin Moran's glove, he failed to squeeze it for the out.
In the fourth, Moran fed Newman with a throw to potentially start a 3-6-1 double play, but he threw it away again, letting another run score.
Newman's errors were the 27th and 28th by the Pirates this year, tied with the Giants for the most in baseball.
"We’ve been inconsistent in certain places, and we can’t continue to make routine errors," Shelton said.
As a result, Williams was pulled with nobody out in the fifth, allowing five runs -- three earned -- on five hits and two walks. He struck out six.
"It was just one of those games where you battled," Williams said. "There’s some self-inflicted battle, too, by not getting ahead of guys and putting guys away. But, overall, stuff felt great and I had all my pitches working today."
Offensively, the Pirates hung around. Erik Gonzalez got them on the board with a two-run homer in the third, and Jose Osuna tied the game in the top of the sixth on a two-run single.
But those hard fought runs were not enough to match the Brewers' timely hitting.
"It is a teaching point, and it comes down to execution and not trying to do too much," Shelton said about his pitchers with two outs. "Once we get over that hump of trying to do too much with that pitch, we’re going to execute the pitch and we’re going to be out of innings and we’re going to give ourselves a chance to go out and continue to play. If we don’t execute those pitches, we put ourselves in a situation where balls are up and guys get hits.”
Factoid of the night: Gonzalez's home run was the 28th time in Pirates history that a player went deep on their birthday. The last to do so was Matt Joyce on Aug. 3, 2016. Gonzalez turned 29.
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