With their seven-game losing streak behind them, the Pittsburgh Pirates looked to Luis Ortiz to provide the same kind of spark the rookie right-hander gave them in his major-league debut last September.
Instead, they went down in flames.
A tied game took a turn in the fourth inning, when first baseman Carlos Santana’s throw to shortstop Tucupita Marcano hit the right hand of baserunner Elias Diaz. Instead of the Pirates turning a double play, the Colorado Rockies capitalized by scoring four runs.
It only went downhill from there.
The Rockies roughed up the Pirates for 11 hits, including a pair of Jurickson Profar home runs, on the way to a 10-1 win Tuesday night before 11,916 at PNC Park.
“You get that freak play where I think Diaz was trying to get out of the way and … it hits his hand,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “If not, it kind of changes the whole complexion of the inning.”
The Rockies (15-22) batted around the order twice, first in the fourth and then in the five-run seventh inning. It marked the third time in four games the Pirates (21-16) allowed double-digit hits, as the Toronto Blue Jays tallied 14 on Saturday and 15 on Sunday.
After recording 17 strikeouts in his first three starts last September, Ortiz has only one in his past two starts for the Pirates. He allowed five runs (two earned) on seven hits and one walk in five innings, leaning more on his sinker and slider than his four-seam fastball.
“I think I attacked the zone pretty good with my good stuff,” Ortiz said through translator Stephen Morales. “I stayed down in the zone, got my ground balls. There was some other stuff I can’t control, but I threw the ball really good.”
Profar took advantage of Ortiz’s biggest mistake. With two outs in the second inning, Profar sent Ortiz’s first-pitch slider 386 feet into the right-field seats for a solo home run and a 1-0 Rockies lead.
The Pirates had their chances. They drew six walks and a hit batter but went 1 for 8 with runners in scoring position and stranded 10.
“I think it’s natural when you’re not scoring runs,” Shelton said, “to put pressure on yourself to try to do a little bit too much.”
In the second, Santana drew a leadoff walk, Jack Suwinski was hit by a pitch and both advanced on a Josh Palacios groundout to short. But Rockies starter Connor Seabold, who earned his first major-league victory, got Jason Delay to go down swinging and Marcano to ground out to short to escape unscathed.
The Pirates tied the score at 1-1 in the third, when Ke’Bryan Hayes led off with a double that skipped past Randal Grichuk in center, then scored on Andrew McCutchen’s single up the middle.
The Rockies took advantage of the throwing mishap to score three unearned runs in the fourth. It started with successive singles by C.J. Cron and Diaz. When Ryan McMahon hit a sharp grounder to first base, Santana fired it to second base but the ball skipped off Diaz’s hand and past Marcano to allow Cron to score for a 2-1 lead.
That put Ortiz in a bad spot, and he made it worse by walking Harold Castro to load the bases. Ezequiel Tovar grounded to Ji Hwan Bae, who tagged out Castro as Diaz scored from third to make it 3-1. Charlie Blackmon followed with an RBI single to right to drive in Profar for a 4-1 lead. Grichuk hit a grounder to Marcano’s backhand and beat the throw to first, allowing Tovar to score to give the Rockies a 5-1 lead.
In the bottom of the fifth, Marcano hit a leadoff single to right and Hayes and McCutchen drew walks to load the bases, only for Santana to fly out to left.
Lefty Jose Hernandez relieved Ortiz in the sixth and retired the side but was replaced by righty Duane Underwood Jr. after giving up a leadoff walk to Blackmon in the seventh. Marcano leapt but couldn’t catch a Kris Bryant line drive, putting runners on the corners, and Blackmon scored on Cron’s sacrifice fly to right to give the Rockies a 6-1 lead.
McMahon hit a two-run triple off the right-field wall to make it 8-1, and Profar drove Underwood’s full-count sinker 405 feet to center for his second home run and a 10-1 lead.
“This sounds really elementary, but we need a hit,” Shelton said. “We need that hit to break it open. We had opportunities again and just did not execute. It’s something that we’re focusing on, talking about, but we need a couple balls to get in the outfield grass that kind of relieves that pressure a little bit.”
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