3/22 Recap | Rays 8 Pirates 6

The Pirates lost their 11th game of the spring 8-6 to the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday. The story of the day seemed to be poor defense and baserunning. They ran into multiple outs and committed three errors in the field. This was one of those games that you are extremely glad came in March and not during the regular season, because it was quite embarassing at times.

Jeff Karstens made the start and did alright, going 5.2 innings and giving up three earned runs. The bad news was that he gave up 10 hits, walked two, and gave up five runs total (including two home runs). Jason Grilli took the loss giving up three runs in his inning of work. Shairon Martis and Tony Watson had scoreless outings, Daniel Moskos gave up a run in .2 innings, and Doug Slaten pitched an inning giving up a single run.

The good news was that the Pirates had 14 hits on the day. Three of those hits came off the bat of Yamaico Navarro (one of them went over the fence for a home run), who is fighting hard to make the team out of camp. Clint Barmes added two hits, Rod Barajas also had a pair of hits including a bomb of his own. It was a nice day on offense for the Pirates, although Pedro Alvarez looked bad again going 0 for 3 with two strikeouts.