Rapid Reactions: Losing Streak Continues as Pirates Thrash Tigers

Pirates 10, Tigers 1 (box score)

• Brad Penny‘s stretch of phenomenal pitching came to an end tonight. He had allowed only six earned runs in his previous five starts, but he allowed five runs tonight in only 5.2 innings. It’s probably not a coincidence that the troubles returned when the high walk count came back. That’s something he struggled with early on in the year.
• The Tigers are now on a four game losing streak. Over this stretch, they’ve scored only 6 runs on 34 hits. That’s one run every 5.7 hits. You gotta be more efficient than that. Coming into tonight’s game they averaged one run every 1.9 hits.
• I hate watching pitchers “hit”. Times are different now folks, players are highly specialized now (and highly paid), so let’s just see them do what they do. DH rule for all!
• The good news of the night was that Joaquin Benoit worked a perfect seventh inning with two strikeouts. The bad news was that Jose Valverde allowed three runs in the eighth.
• We’ll chalk up this loss to the opening of Pirates of the Caribbean 4. I’m hoping that the power of Johnny Depp only lasts for one night.
• Tigers have Scherzer and Porcello set up to pitch the next two games, so hopefully they’ll step up to shut down the Pirates.

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