In win, Rangers take advantage of Pirates' mishaps

Even though the Pittsburgh Pirates struggled from the start against the Texas Rangers, Rich Hill wasn’t in the mood to make excuses or shift blame to anyone or anything else.

On a night the 43-year-old left-hander recorded nine strikeouts, Hill took full responsibility for the three-run sixth inning that allowed the Rangers to turn a one-run game into a runaway victory.

That Nathan Eovaldi tossed a complete game as the Rangers beat the Pirates, 6-1, on Tuesday night before 12,061 at PNC Park only made Hill more upset with his performance.

Where Eovaldi (6-2) allowed one run on six hits and one walk while striking out five on 104 pitches (71 strikes), Hill was tagged for five runs on seven hits and two walks on 98 pitches in 5 1/3 innings.

“You can look at strikeouts or whatever but, at the end of the day, it’s the score,” Hill said. “Coming out of that game at a 4-1 deficit late in the game, that’s not putting us in a position to win. I think if you want to look at it as a good outing, fair outing or whatever, in my mind that’s not a championship mindset. So you’ve got to hold yourself to a higher standard and you’ve got to be able to execute pitches throughout the entire game to be able to give the team the opportunity to win.”

Twice, the Pirates gave up runs when a balk was called with a runner on third base. Twice, Ji Hwan Bae singled only to be picked off by the Rangers, with one costing the Pirates a run.

The Rangers took a 2-0 lead in the first inning, as Marcus Semien hit a fly ball to center that bounced past Jack Suwinski to the wall and was scored a triple. Suwinski, wearing sunglasses, lost track of the ball in the sun and missed diving for it in the shadow of the stadium.

“It’s a tough ball,” Suwinski said. “The sun was right above the the top of the stadium, and it’s behind it. So you’ve got to pick one, the top or the bottom.”

Semien scored when Corey Seager grounded to short and beat Tucupita Marcano’s backhanded jump-throw to first for a single. Seager advanced to second on Nathaniel Lowe’s walk, tagged to third when Adolis Garcia popped up in foul territory to first baseman Carlos Santana, who made a catch against the netting and scored when Hill was called for a balk with an 0-2 count against Johan Heim.

“We have to move past that,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said of the mishaps. “We have to move past that, and we did. We came back and made it at 2-1 game, and we just didn’t add on at all.”

In the bottom of the first, Andrew McCutchen hit a leadoff double, tying him with Paul Goldschmidt for fifth among active players with 398, and advanced to third on Bryan Reynolds’ groundout to first. But the Pirates stranded McCutchen as Eovaldi got a pair of pop-ups to end the inning.

Ji Hwan Bae led off the third with a single to left but was picked off by Eovaldi at first base. The Pirates challenged the call but lost, which cost them a run when McCutchen drew a walk and Reynolds followed with an RBI double to center to cut it to 2-1.

Hill (4-4) retired eight consecutive batters, including four consecutive by strikeout, before giving up a single to Lowe and a double to Garcia in the third. Hill got Josh Jung to ground out to third to escape the jam.

“He had them off balance,” Shelton said. “We gave up a run early because we lost the ball in the sun, and if not for the balk, we’re in a pretty good spot. He had good stuff. He had a lot of swing and miss.”

Hill became the 12th pitcher to record nine or more strikeouts at age 43 or older and the first since Randy Johnson in 2009. But it came at a cost, as Hill’s pitch count through five innings was at 83. The Rangers took advantage in the sixth, when Lowe drew a leadoff walk, Garcia doubled to left and Jung drove in both with a single to center for a 4-1 lead. After Robbie Grossman singled to put runners on the corners with one out, the Pirates replaced Hill with lefty reliever Jose Hernandez and Jung scored on another balk to make it 5-1.

“I was a little surprised that the home plate umpire called it with that angle,” Shelton said. “Normally, if that gets called, it gets called from the first-base umpire.”

Eovaldi, by comparison, completed the fourth on five pitches and the fifth on six and got the Pirates to ground into double plays in both innings. Eovaldi worked his four-seam fastball off his splitter, generating 31 swings and 14 whiffs between the two pitches.

“He throws a lot of strikes, and he has really good stuff,” Suwinski said. “We thought his game plan wasn’t going to change. He’s not going to come in here and try to nibble. We expected him to go deep into the game, so we wanted to get our swings off early and attack him in the zone early.”

After Reynolds caught Garcia’s fly ball at the left-field wall in the eighth, Jung drilled Duane Underwood Jr.’s 0-2 curveball 444 feet to left for his 11th home run and 6-1 Rangers lead.

Bae was picked off at second base in the eighth, when he headed for third on McCutchen’s single to right and was thrown out.

“I think the biggest homework for me right now is really just reading the situation of the game,” Bae said through interpreter Daniel Park, “and to know when to use my speed and when to not.”

Eovaldi had thrown 91 pitches entering the ninth inning, then struck out Reynolds swinging and Suwinski looking at a called third strike before getting Santana to ground out to short to finish off the Pirates.

“If you don’t make pitches at this level, you’re not going to put your team in a position to win. I didn’t put our guys in a position to win,” Hill said. “I had an opportunity. … I did not throw the ball well. That’s the way it goes. You can cut it whatever way you want. In my opinion, I’ve got to do better.”