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ST. LOUIS -- The problem with a masterpiece is it can be tough to follow up.
That was the case Sunday at Busch Stadium for Johan Oviedo. After tossing his first shutout Monday in Kansas City to kick off the Pirates' Missouri road trip, he had trouble locating his fastball and wound up walking six over 3 2/3 innings, putting his team in too deep a hole and falling short, 6-4, to the Cardinals.
Oviedo has been prone to inconsistency this season. He allowed no more than one run in six of his last nine starts, but allowed 15 runs over 13 innings in his other three leading up to this outing. On Sunday, the lack of consistency was with his feel.
"I didn’t feel comfortable," Oviedo said. "I’ve been working for two months in a different way. Today, I just didn’t feel comfortable."
Oviedo declined to offer much insight into what being uncomfortable meant, other than saying there are "things you can't control" and that "it's been happening all season."
Metrically speaking, Oviedo had his normal fastball velocity and the only difference, outside of the control, was a little less spin on his breaking ball. That seems negligible, though, especially after looking at the location of his pitches. There, it looked like the fastball location was the primary issue:
"It just looked like he over-rotated a little bit and kind of lost his arm slot a little bit," Derek Shelton said.
Oviedo was able to get out of a bases loaded jam in the first inning, but couldn't do the same in the second when Nolan Gorman lined a two-out, two-run single. In the fourth, he haded the ball off to Ryan Borucki with the bases juiced again, who allowed a base hit to Alec Burleson. On the day, Oviedo allowed five runs in 3 2/3 innings and threw more balls (49) than strikes (48).
Some ambiguity about comfortability notwithstanding, it's hard to find too many grips about this road trip for the Pirates. They enjoyed several standout performances from a wide range of impact players. To rattle off a few: Ke'Bryan Hayes' winning home run against the Royals, Liover Peguero's catch against the Cardinals, Jack Suwinski putting together better swings, and David Bednar and Mitch Keller retaining their All-Star form.
Peguero even managed to pull off another highlight reel play in the eighth inning, making a diving stop and throw on a Burleson grounder up the middle to keep it a two-run game:
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSvideos) September 3, 2023
"What can I say? It was just crazy," Peguero said postgame with a grin.
The Pirates weren't able to complete the road trip sweep, but building a head of steam for September and running through the bag could only be a good thing moving forward.
"We're playing good," Peguero said. "We can't let this one game take us away and make us think something else. We've just got to continue to do what we've been doing. Playing together and keep moving forward together."
"A 5-1 road trip, we played all the way through the ninth inning," Shelton said. "Proud of our group, the way the battled."
More must-reads:
- MLB announces punishment for Astros' Ronel Blanco over foreign substance
- West Point alum made history in his MLB debut with Reds
- The 'No. 1 overall pick in the MLB Draft' quiz
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