Kevin Gorman's Take 5: Fair or foul? Safe or out? Close calls cost Pirates in loss to Indians
To the Pittsburgh Pirates, this loss wasn’t what it seemed.
Jarrod Dyson was safe at second in the ninth.
Carlos Santana’s home run was foul in the 10th.
Pirates manager Derek Shelton was sure of both scenarios that the cameras didn’t catch — or couldn’t convince the umpires to reverse — in Cleveland’s 6-3 win in 10 innings Tuesday night at PNC Park.
Their fourth extra-innings loss left the Pirates with a sour taste, especially after they rallied with two runs in the fifth inning to tie the game and put themselves in position to win in the bottom of the ninth.
But like their losses to Milwaukee on July 27 in the home opener, at the Chicago Cubs on Aug. 2 and against the Detroit Tigers on Aug. 7, the Pirates (4-15) couldn’t find a way to finish.
“You have to make sure that you execute,” Shelton said. “We’re getting ourselves in situations where we’re executing up until that point, then once we get to that point, we have not executed yet. That’s going to be the final step.”
Crew Chief reviews call that Carlos Santana hits a home run in the 10th; call stands, home run. Powered by @Mitel. pic.twitter.com/cxFy9ktciO
— MLB Replays (@MLBReplays) August 19, 2020
Or because the ball went outside the foul pole #pirates #MLB #WTF pic.twitter.com/R3Di9lbaJe
— Robert Pessamato (@bobpess) August 19, 2020
1. Fair or foul?: From the press box, Santana’s 442-foot blast off Sam Howard appeared to fly over the left-field foul pole. From the home dugout, Shelton said, the Pirates thought it was a foul ball.
Shelton said both catcher John Ryan Murphy and third baseman Erik Gonzalez said it looked foul. Shortstop Kevin Newman also believed the ball sailed left of the pole.
“Yeah, I mean, I definitely don’t have as good of an angle — I’ll start with that — as the umpire did,” Newman said of third base umpire Dan Issogna, the crew chief. “But, from my angle, it definitely looked foul.”
Even Santana stopped for a second, confused on the call, before resuming his roundtrip. That caused consternation to some, a giveaway that even the hitter knew he’d pulled it foul.
That’s the problem. The different angles gave the appearance of a different result. One looked like a three-run homer. Another looked like a foul ball. We didn’t get to see a shot straight down the third-base line that could have made it indisputable.
And that makes it impossible to overturn the call on the field.
Pirates challenge call that Jarrod Dyson is out at 2B in the 9th; call stands, runner is out. Powered by @Mitel. pic.twitter.com/YvYSssU1Q5
— MLB Replays (@MLBReplays) August 19, 2020
2. Safe or out?: The controversy over the Santana homer would have been inconsequential, if Dyson hadn’t been thrown out at second in the ninth inning.
Santana might have been the goat instead of the hero.
The speedy center fielder singled off Santana’s glove to lead off the ninth, then reached second on Jacob Stallings’ sacrifice.
But Indians catcher Roberto Perez caught Dyson cheating off the bag. Shortstop Francisco Lindor used his foot to block Dyson’s right hand from reaching the bag, but Dyson appeared to elude the tag and use his left hand to touch the base.
Problem was, second base umpire Ben May was out of position on the call. He was behind Lindor, so he couldn’t see Dyson’s left hand on the opposite side of the bag.
“Again, we had his back hand getting on the bag,” Shelton said. “I know Lindor’s foot was in front of the bag for the first hand. We thought on the back side that he got his hand on the bag.”
That play proved costly.
3. Walk it off: Kevin Newman was the hero of the Pirates’ last win at PNC Park, with a pinch-hit, two-run single in the ninth for a 6-4 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Aug. 6.
If Dyson was still on second, he might have scored when Newman singled off Nick Wittgren. At worst, the bases would have been loaded for Josh Bell, who hit the game-tying two-run double in the fifth.
“I don’t look at it like that,” Newman said. “There’s a lot of what-ifs in baseball. If that doesn’t happen, I might get pitched differently. Frazier’s bunt might go differently. You just never know, so I don’t view it like that.”
4. Dutch Brew: Shelton pulled a surprise by having starter JT Brubaker pitch only three innings after a 12-day layoff because of postponements against St. Louis and Cincinnati.
Brubaker threw 57 pitches, 31 for strikes, while allowing three runs on three hits with three walks and one strikeout. Afterward, he admitted that “the crispness of my stuff wasn’t quite there” because throwing bullpens is no comparison to game-like atmosphere.
Shelton had Derek Holland at the ready in relief, a role they planned in Cincinnati. After skipping a start, Shelton said Holland would start in the Milwaukee series this weekend.
“We tried to keep that stuff quiet, just for a strategy point of view,” Holland said. “Obviously, you want to let the young guys get in there. I’ve done my starting for the time being, so I think it’s good to let guys like Brubaker and the other rookies come in and do stuff to get those opportunities. My career’s at the end of it, I guess you could say, as a starter, so I’m OK with watching guys get their opportunity to go out there and shine.”
Holland allowed one hit in two innings while throwing 25 pitches. He struck out Cesar Hernandez and Jose Ramirez to end the fourth, then got Santana to hit into a double play and Franmil Reyes to ground out to end the fifth.
“You guys didn’t see that one coming, did you?” Shelton said, with a laugh. “We have so many guys who haven’t touched the mound. We knew Bru’s outing was going to be shorter just because it was the first time he had pitched in 12 days. Instead of having Holland throw a side, we just had him do it on the field.”
5. Good for Gonzo: Gonzalez entered the game with a team-best .349 batting average after going 14 for 31 (.452) with six doubles, a homer and nine RBIs in his previous eight games.
Shelton said that Gonzalez has played himself into a starting role at third base, where Phillip Evans was playing well before suffering a season-ending broken jaw in a collision with Gregory Polanco.
“One of the things we’ve talked about is guys showing the ability to swing the bat,” Shelton said before the Indians game. “If you look at some of the things he has done, in terms of regular numbers and underlying numbers, I think he’s probably hitting the ball harder than just about anybody in the game right now over the last 10 days. And he’s played really good defense. So, he’s done a nice job and put himself in a position to get at-bats.”
Shelton said the ability to play above-average defense at multiple infield positions makes Gonzalez “a valuable piece to any club” and has given the Pirates incentive use his versatility.
Of course, Gonzalez went 0 for 5 against the Indians on Tuesday night, with two strikeouts, and committed a throwing error against his former team. He also made a couple of nice plays, forcing Santana out at second in both the first and third innings and turning a 5-4-3 double play on Santana in the fifth.
Kevin Gorman is a TribLive reporter covering the Pirates. A Baldwin native and Penn State graduate, he joined the Trib in 1999 and has covered high school sports, Pitt football and basketball and was a sports columnist for 10 years. He can be reached at kgorman@triblive.com.
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