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Pirates steal series from Dodgers on rough day for Julio Urias

April 27, 2023

PITTSBURGH — Before boarding the team flight out of Pittsburgh on Thursday, the Dodgers needed to take a careful inventory of their equipment. The Pirates stole everything else.

Even the Dodgers’ best pitcher at controlling the running game, Julio Urias, couldn’t completely stop the Pirates’ thievery. They stole three bases in the first inning against Urias, running their total for the three-game series to 12 on the way to a 6-2 defeat of the Dodgers on Thursday afternoon.

Eight of the 21 runs the Pirates scored in winning two of three from the Dodgers were aided and abetted directly by stolen bases. The Dodgers have now given up a major-league high 38 steals in 44 attempts. Half of the six times the Dodgers have actually thwarted a steal attempt came on pickoffs by Urias, including one Thursday.

“It created a lot of offense for them,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I don’t know how many bases they stole, but it was certainly double digits. … It was something that, like I’ve said for the last few days, it’s hard to not see it, what’s going on and we’ve got to continue to try to manage it. But that was a big difference in how many bases we gave up.”

The rules changes MLB has implemented this season, encouraging more action on the bases, has created a new way of doing business for teams like the Pirates and Arizona Diamondbacks – young, athletic teams that put the ball in play and run aggressively.

The Dodgers have played those two teams 11 times in the early going and lost seven. The Pirates and Diamondbacks combined to steal 24 bases in 25 attempts in those games, averaging over five runs per game against the Dodgers.

They look like two prime examples of teams that have benefitted from baseball’s new world order.

“Yeah, they are,” Roberts said. “I don’t think they put a roster together based on things that have changed with the landscape of baseball. It certainly, in my opinion, levels the playing field and that’s a good thing for baseball.

“Just the bases that we’ve given up, it’s a lot. I’m not discounting that at all. But I think it’s more magnified because of the teams that we’ve played early on.”

The Dodgers finally did some running of their own and it turned an early 1-0 lead into a 2-0 lead.

Singles by Mookie Betts and Jason Heyward put runners at the corners in the first inning. Heyward stole second – just the 10th successful stolen base by a Dodger this season – and scored with Betts on David Peralta’s two-out single.

The Pirates stole that lead away from the Dodgers too.

Leadoff hitter Tucupita Marcano started the running with a bunt single, advancing to third on a wild throw by Dodgers catcher Austin Barnes.

Bryan Reynolds drove him in with a single. After Andrew McCutchen also singled, he and Reynolds moved up on a double steal – and scored on a sacrifice fly and a bloop single to give the Pirates a 3-2 lead.

“He had that first hitter with two strikes and it was starting to get into starting off on a good note,” Roberts said. “But then the two-strike bunt I think changed the dynamic of that inning. They capitalized. Couple other base hits, couple stolen bases put them in a situational hitting situation and they capitalized and scored some runs.

“When he gets ahead of that first guy, wants to put up a zero and then a two-strike bunt, we throw the ball away, he’s at third base and they hit a fly ball or base hit, another base hit, stolen base, stolen base and then a base hit or sac fly and they’ve got the lead. It kind of flipped the game, the momentum pretty quickly.”

It stayed a one-run game until the sixth inning when the Pirates scored three runs on back-to-back home runs by Connor Joe and Rudolfo Castro. It was the third consecutive start in which Urias has given up back-to-back home runs – Patrick Wisdom and Cody Bellinger and then Bellinger and Trey Mancini did it to Urias in his previous two starts.

The six runs Urias gave up to the Pirates were the most earned runs he has allowed in a start since June 2021. It is part of a poor three-start stretch by the left-hander. Urias has allowed 14 runs in 14 ⅔ innings over that time and batters are hitting .344 (22 for 64) against him with those six home runs.

“I have to pitch better. That’s what I have to do,” Urias said in Spanish.

“I feel like I’m too inconsistent right now and I’m paying the price.”

A lineup missing Max Muncy, Will Smith and J.D. Martinez was unable to fight back. The final 15 Dodgers batters went down in order against Pirates starter Mitch Keller and the bullpen.

“We kind of found our way in that position each game differently,” Roberts said of being short-handed due to injuries and paternity leave. “With the guys that we have, we’re going out there expecting to win. Today, I thought we had some good momentum and we just couldn’t keep that momentum from the first.

“As far as the guys that are here, there are some things we’ve got to get better at on both sides of the baseball. But we’re going to get our team back here, our full-strength team, soon.”

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Pirates steal series from Dodgers on rough day for Julio Urias

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