The aftermath: Pirates lose second consecutive wild-card game
Two wild-card games in a row, 18 scoreless innings against two bona fide aces, and the Pirates’ season ended early again.
Wednesday night it was Jake Arrieta, striking out 11 in a complete-game victory. Arrieta pitched a masterpiece, but Kyle Schwarber’s home run and three RBIs played a big role, Dexter Fowler’s night helped, and if the game wasn’t interesting enough the benches cleared due to a hit-by-pitch tit-for-tat.
1. Jake Arrieta
His line: Nine innings, four hits, no runs, no walks, 11 strikeouts. He extended his scoreless innings streak to 31 in a row, including the end of the regular season. He located his fastball, had a great curveball and took advantage of a wide strike zone from home-plate umpire Jeff Nelson.
“He actually didn’t seem as pinpoint that night in Chicago,” said Andrew McCutchen, referring to the night Arrieta took a no-hitter into the seventh against the Pirates at Wrigley Field Sept. 27. “He seemed a little more on in Chicago.”
Someone asked Arrieta a question along the lines of Arrieta not having his best stuff. He responded, “I’m not sure what game you were watching.”
Asked what Arrieta’s pitch limit was, manager Joe Maddon said “Infinity.”
“Two years in a row we've drawn a tough bull,” manager Clint Hurdle said. “We've pushed a couple times late, squared a couple balls up and they've turned them into double plays. Arrieta was ahead of almost every count through five. The ball-to- strike sequencing didn't give us a chance to get many offensive counts.”
Arrieta was tough through five innings, but started to crack in the sixth, falling behind batters. He eventually loaded the bases with one out, but a double play saved him.
Asked if he’d ever seen anything like what Arrieta was doing, Maddon said, “Bob Gibson, I was a Gibson fan growing up, and I hate to disappoint the Cub nation, but I was a Gibson fan growing up. He was outstanding. My thought tonight was to attempt to take Jake Arrieta out of that game would have been tantamount to taking Bob Gibson out of that situation or a World Series performance. So I would say in my experience as a kid growing up, I saw Mr. Gibson out there tonight.”
High praise.
2. Gerrit Cole
"It burns. It stings. It sucks,“ Cole said. ”All the negative things you can come up with, that's how it feels right now."
Cole was erratic in the first and allowed a run. He later made two mistakes, one a cement-mixer slider to Kyle Schwarber and one a fastball to Dexter Fowler.
“That first-inning run, those kind of things happen,” Cole said. “So be it. The mistakes later, with the two home runs, were tremendously unfortunate."
”We executed the game plan to a tee today,“ Schwarber said. ”Dex got on base pretty much every time except once. Just trying to hit the ball hard and layoff inside. Don't chase. Try to make solid contact.“
3. The benches-clearing gathering
Arrieta hit two batters: Francisco Cervelli on the finger and Josh Harrison in the shoulder, but with a breaking ball.
”You've got a pitcher that's dotting everything up, throwing four pitches for strikes and Cervelli gets pitched hot up top, so I don't think anybody was a fan of that,“ Hurdle said. ”Josh got hit with a breaking ball. That's probably just a pitch that got away.“
So with two outs and nobody on, Tony Watson hit Arrieta with the first pitch in the hip. Arrieta had some things to say, walking with Cervelli up the baseline. Watson suddenly ran toward Cervelli and Arrieta -- he was later to say he did so to prevent Cervelli from getting himself thrown out of the game.
”It is what it is,“ Watson said. ”Intent or not, anywhere up near the head, we don’t like that. Neither team likes that.“
But the dugouts and bullpens emptied and a scrum formed -- Cole found his way into the middle of it. At some point, David Ross got his arm around Sean Rodriguez’s neck, which caused Rodriguez to get angry and swing at Ross. He later swung at the Gatorade cooler in the dugout.
”I was very heated,“ Rodriguez said. ”Obviously wrong, definitely not the example that you want anybody to see.“
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