The good, bad & ugly of baseball all in one night
The Pirates have had more exciting regular-season wins, but none immediately come to mind. MLB has had more troubling nights, but it’s just as hard to remember one.
Surreal is the only way to describe baseball’s late Saturday night. Where do we begin?
• The Pirates beat the first-place New York Mets, 9-7, at PNC Park after trailing 6-0 in the eighth inning and 7-5 in the ninth.
Wilmer Difo gave the Pirates a chance with a pinch-hit, three-run home run in the eighth. John Nogowski doubled in the eighth-inning rally and kept the one going in the ninth with a single. Jacob Stallings won the game with a two-out, grand slam.
If you had the Difo-Nogowski-Stallings trifecta as Pirates heroes, take my advice: Buy a lottery ticket.
Difo is batting .419 with 3 doubles, 2 home runs and 6 RBIs in 13 games since rejoining the Pirates July 2. He had two more hits Sunday in the 7-6 loss to the Mets when the Pirates took their turn at blowing a 6-0 lead. His 10 pinch hits led baseball going into Sunday’s games.
Nogowski has 19 hits in 42 at-bats in 10 games since joining the Pirates July 5, including a two-run double Sunday. He added to his legend in Friday night’s 4-1 win against the Mets when he exchanged heated words with Mets starter Marcus Stroman.
And Stallings? His old man, Kevin, might not be remembered fondly in this town, but Stallings certainly should be. The kid seems to thrive in big moments. The grand slam was his third walk-off hit this season.
Unfortunately for the Mets, losing the game Saturday night in brutal fashion hardly was the worst part of their day. Before the game, they placed four-time All-Star shortstop Francisco Lindor on the injured list with an oblique strain. Even worse, they also announced that pitcher
Jacob deGrom is being shut down because of right forearm tightness.
The deGrom news isn’t just a loss for the Mets. It’s a loss for baseball. deGrom is the best pitcher in the game and is having a season that rivals any in major league history. He is 7-2 with a 1.08 ERA, 0.55 WHIP and 146 strikeouts with just 11 walks in 92 innings. He has given up one or no earned runs in 12 of his 15 starts and is challenging the incomparable Bob Gibson’s single-season ERA record of 1.12, set in 1968. He is headed toward his third Cy Young Award in four seasons.
It’s a shame deGrom, who hasn’t pitched since July 7, wasn’t able to go against the Pirates over the weekend. Who wouldn’t want to say they had a chance to watch one of the greats of all time?
• The Padres-Nationals game is suspended in the sixth inning after gunfire outside Nationals Park in Washington.
I can’t remember such a frightening, chaotic scene at a ballpark since the earthquake in the Bay Area interrupted the 1989 World Series. No one was sure what was happening after people inside the stadium heard the gunshots. The Padres and Nationals quickly left the field, some helping fans into their dugout and clubhouse. Other people hid behind tables and chairs, thinking an active shooter might be in the ballpark. Video of fans running across the concourse as they fled the stadium is terrifying. Three people were injured in the shooting.
“There’s no longer player or fans. I feel like everybody is just people,” Padres shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. said Sunday after helping several people to safety. “Just human beings out there. Just need to be secure.”
You would think you would be safe going out for a nice night at the ballpark. Of course, you also would think you would be safe at school or a church or a temple or a concert.
We’ve become almost inured to all the shootings in this country.
• A fan at Yankee Stadium throws a ball at Boston left fielder Alex Verdugo and hits him in the back.
This type of nonsense has been going on for too long. Think back to Dave Parker’s days with the Pirates when fans threw batteries at him at Three Rivers Stadium.
Red Sox manager Alex Cora briefly pulled his team off the field after the incident with Verdugo. How could anyone have blamed him if he had refused to have his players continue the game? I know the players make an unfathomable amount of money. But no amount of money justifies that abuse. I hope the criminal who threw the ball at Verdugo is identified and prosecuted as just that — a criminal.
• The Los Angeles Angels’ Shohei Ohtani goes 0 for 5 with four strikeouts against the Seattle Mariners.
Did I mention surreal? What is a story about baseball these days without an update about the sport’s best two-play player since Babe Ruth?
If nothing else, it’s proof that the game still is played by mere mortals and not super humans.