/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54839709/usa_today_10061439.0.jpg)
Washington’s hitters didn’t get much of anything off Gerrit Cole or the Pittsburgh Pirates’ bullpen last night, in what ended up a 6-1 loss in PNC Park.
The Nationals connected for just three hits total and one run in the second game of three with the Pirates.
Cole held the Nats to one run on three hits over seven innings and Felipe Rivero and Juan Nicasio combined for two scoreless to lock down the win.
“We hit some balls pretty good off of Cole, just not many of them,” Dusty Baker told reporters after the loss. “And we didn’t find any holes, but that was one of the best performance that we’d seen against us.
“Plus, it didn’t help that we didn’t play well. We had errors, we got picked off, threw to the wrong base, so we didn’t deserve to win that one because we didn’t play very well, so we’ll just have to come back tomorrow and play better fundamentally.”
Trea Turner committed two errors (his 2nd and 3rd of the season), and Brian Goodwin, who doubled to drive in a run in what was a 3-1 game in the seventh, got picked off of second base to end that inning and threat.
“[Goodwin] kind of got caught too far off the bag, cause he was trying to score,” Baker said. “You know what he was trying to do, but his run would have just cut the deficit to one, so you can’t get picked off in that situation. He’s played well for us, but like I said, we’ve got to cut down the mistakes, period.”
This afternoon, the Nationals and Pirates wrap up their three-game set in the rubber match in PNC, with Tanner Roark on the mound against Tyler Glasnow in the series finale.
Goodwin is getting another start, in left this time, with Jayson Werth and Ryan Zimmerman getting the day off...
HERE’S THE NATIONALS’ LINEUP FOR THE SERIES FINALE VS THE PIRATES:
#Nats vs #Pirates 3 for 3 in PNC: Turner SS, Goodwin LF, Harper RF, Rendon 3B, Murphy 2B, Wieters C, Lind 1B, Taylor CF, Roark RHP
— federalbaseball (@federalbaseball) May 18, 2017