For the first month of the Major League Baseball season Eric Hosmer's bat has been tremendous. His glove, however ... well, that's a very different story.
Hosmer hit a home run but also let the winning run score on a bad error in a 7-6, 10th-inning loss to the Pirates on Saturday in Pittsburgh. The loss snaps San Diego's 4-game road winning streak.
The embattled 1st baseman put the Padres up 3-1 with an opposite-field, 3-run homer in the 4th inning. That blast touched off a back-and-forth evening that saw the Friars give up three different leads. Sean Manaea was pretty good on the mound, going 6.2 innings and allowing three runs. The last one that scored off him could probably have been avoided.
Bryan Reynolds hit a grounder up the middle to Jake Cronenworth, who flipped to Ha-Seong Kim at shortstop. Kim took a couple of extra steps with a spin move before making the relay throw and that extra time cost him, allowing Reynolds to beat the throw and a run to score and tie the game 3-3.
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In the 8th inning Manny Machado hit a laser into the centerfield seats, a 2-run shot that put the Friars back on top 5-3 ... but in the bottom half of the inning rookie reliever Steven Wilson coughed up a 2-run shot to Michael Chavis that tied the game again and took it to extra innings.
In the 10th, Trent Grisham singled home Jorge Alfaro to make it 6-5 Padres but in the bottom half Luis Garcia gave up a single up the middle to Ke'Bryan Hayes to plate Jake Marisnick (the former Padres outfielder also made a pair of stellar catches in the outfield) and the game was tied again.
That's when Hosmer's defensive ineptitude showed up again.
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Reynolds hit a grounder right at the 1st baseman. It should have been an easy double play. Instead Hosmer tried to backhand the ball and let it go right by him. Hayes scored all the way from 1st base to give the Pirates a 7-6 walkoff win. The Padres can still win the series on Sunday and they have the right guy on the mound to do it. Joe Musgrove gets the start against his former team, facing right-hander Mitch Keller.
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