Mistakes Bite Bucs | Pirates 2 Red Sox 4

The Pittsburgh Pirates couldn't quite finish the sweep of the Boston Red Sox Sunday afternoon as they were beaten 4-2. The story of this game was defensive mishaps.

The first Red Sox run came on a Josh Reddick flyout. Jarrod Saltalamacchia had just doubled to lead off the inning, and tagged up and went to third on Reddick's flyout. Andrew McCutchen loaded up and gunned towards third but airmailed it and the ball floated towards the stands. Chase d'Arnaud went over towards the fence to catch it, but the ball hit the edge of his glove and popped up and out of play, allowing Reddick to score.

The second run of the day for Boston came because of a James McDonald throwing error. After Kevin Youkilis lead off the inning with a walk, Darnell McDonald hit a little dribbler to McDonald, who hopped off the mound, grabbed it, and threw it into centerfield past Ronny Cedeno, allowing Youkilis to go to third. He would score on a sacrifice fly later in the inning.

The Red Sox got the go-ahead and eventual game-winning run in the 7th after 2 walks and another error on pitcher Danny Moskos loaded the bases. Dustin Pedroia drove in the 3rd run of the game on a groundout, and Youkilis added an insurance run with a sacrifice fly.

The Pirates couldn't get enough offense going to put up the runs they needed to win this ballgame. The team got only 5 hits off the combination of Andrew Miller, Alfredo Aceves, Daniel Bard, and Jonathan Papelbon. Nobody collected more than one hit and the Pirates left 17 men on base.

It was a disappointing loss for the Pirates, but still a very good homestand, going 4-2 and taking 2 of 3 from arguably the best team in the major leagues.

There were a couple things that really made a lot of Pirates fans lose a lot of respect for the Red Sox in today's game. First of all, Andrew Miller decided to throw right at the legs of Eric Fryer, who was making his big league debut, twice in one at bat innings after the Pirates had almost hit Pedroia for the 3rd time in the game. There was no intent from Pittsburgh to hit Pedroia, and they didn't actually hit him. The Red Sox took it personally, which is fine, but there reply was incredibly late, directed at the wrong player, and they tried it one more time than they should have. Classless.

Also, a story came out today on the Red Sox Official Website that has Youkilis saying he thinks American League teams should be allowed to use their designated hitter in National League parks, check out this quite:

"We built our team around the designated hitter, and when they come to our park, they get to use their position players and pitchers don't have to hit... Hopefully [Commissioner] Bud Selig at some point will review it. For us we're at a disadvantage a lot, and hopefully in Interleague we can use the DH in National League parks and in the World Series, too."

You have got to be kidding me. There are so many things wrong with this statement. How in the world does an American League team have a disadvantage playing without their DH? The other team is doing the same thing. It's not like NL pitchers are good hitters that can actually hurt you, they may be a little bit better just because of the opportunities they get, but it really isn't enough to change the outcome of more than like... 1 in 50 baseball games. If they were allowed to use their DH in an NL game, the NL would have a much larger disadvantage than the AL has with how it is now. You play like 9 games a year without your DH, so suck it up and stop complaining.

Maybe Youkilis should focus more on actually catching a ball in the field than criticizing the rules of a game that is 5 times older than he is.

Anyways, the Pirates are done with the Red Sox and have an off-day tomorrow. Good news is that the Reds and Cardinals both lost today, although the Brewers won and extended their division lead to 3 games over St. Louis. The Pirates are tied with the Reds, 1 behind the Cardinals, and 4 behind the Brewers.

Tuesday through Thursday the Pirates face Jose Bautista and the Blue Jays before heading to Washington DC for a 4-game set (with a double header on Saturday) with the Nationals.