The baseball gods, if you believe in such divine creatures, are fickle as hell. Especially when you play for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Already besieged with cost certainty and ownership more interested in the bottom line than investing in talent on the field, the Steel City’s baseball team has seen some wild things happen over the years. And often they unfortunately go against their favor.
Earlier in the week, for example, the Pirates gave up a run on a play best described as the entire team forgetting how to play baseball. But on Saturday, the Pirates got one back in a game against another team struggling to prioritize winning, the Colorado Rockies.
E2 🚨 • A completely unnecessary throw, on ball four pic.twitter.com/lDlQI7pxEP
— MLB Errors (@mlberrors) May 29, 2021
With the Pirates already up 1-0 in the third, a wild throw into left field gave them an easy second run on an E2. But the throw never really needed to happen: the pitch that led up to the throw to third was outside for a ball. A fourth ball, which would have put the man trying to steal third on the base anyway.
Instead, the ball got past the third baseman nowhere near the bag, and that runner trotted home instead. It’s little consolation for what happened earlier in the week, as it was an error far more routine than a first baseman forgetting that he can simply tag first base to record the final out of an inning. But it is a sign that even teams that forget how to play baseball can benefit from the weirdness of the sport we know and love to see people struggling to execute during the summer months.
