10th-inning meltdown sinks Bucs

“I feel terrible, for the team, for myself. I feel like I’m squandering my own opportunity to be here.”

BEN HELLER

Reliever Ben Heller gave up seven runs as the Twins avoided a series sweep.

After a bullpen game Saturday followed by a short start from rookie Jared Jones, the Pittsburgh Pirates were down to their last reliever when the game went into extra innings.

So they turned to righthander Ben Heller, in hopes his second appearance would fare better than his first.

Instead, it was another disaster.

Heller allowed five hits, hit three batters and gave up one walk in a seven-run 10th inning as the Minnesota Twins won 11-5 on Sunday afternoon before 24,463 at PNC Park to prevent a Pirates sweep.

“It just kind of got away from me, really,” said Heller, who threw 29 of his 46 pitches for strikes. “I feel terrible, for the team, for myself. I feel like I’m squandering my own opportunity to be here. Yeah, it’s frustrating. At the end of the day, I cost the team a win.”

It was the second meltdown in as many games from the 32-year-old Heller, whose contract was selected from Triple-A Indianapolis on Tuesday to prevent him from triggering an out clause. He gave up five runs on four hits in the fifth inning of Thursday’s 11-7 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in his Pirates debut. Heller now has a 49.50 ERA.

“You’ve got to try to keep his head up,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “He’s scuffled the two outings up here. We’ve got to continue to work with him. He did a really good job in Indy, and we saw different things. Right now, we’re not putting the ball on the plate, and the sweeper looks like it’s just way too side-to-side, which is not only getting hit, but it’s a lot of foul balls, not a lot of finish.”

Manuel Margot started the 10th by drilling a 1-0 cutter to right-center for a leadoff triple, scoring automatic runner Kyle Farmer to give the Twins the lead. Heller hit Byron Buxton with a pitch and walked Ryan Jeffers to load the bases. Heller then hit Willi Castro in the back of the leg with a pitch — eliciting an angry response from the Twins second baseman, who was hit four times in the past two games — and Margot scored for a 6-4 Twins lead. Carlos Santana hit a sharp grounder down the first-base line for a two-run double to extend it to 8-4.

Heller got Bronx cheers for striking out Royce Lewis, but Carlos Correa followed with a two-run single for a 10-4 Twins lead and Max Kepler singled for a seven-run lead that proved insurmountable. Shelton said he was one hitter away from turning to a position player to pitch.

That the game went into extra innings came back to a controversial play in the first inning as the Twins scored a run when a foul ball was called a passed ball.

Jones endured a rough start, allowing three runs (two earned) in the first inning, and allowed six hits and three walks with three strikeouts in five innings. That forced the Pirates to turn early to a bullpen that used six relievers in Saturday’s 4-0 win.

After striking out Santana, Jones loaded the bases by giving up singles to Trevor Larnach and Correa and walking Kepler on four pitches. Jose Miranda drew a walk to bring in Larnach for a 1-0 lead, the Pirates couldn’t turn a double play on an Alex Kirilloff grounder to first and Correa scored to make it 2-0.

Kirilloff advanced to second on a wild pitch, then Jones threw a fastball that glanced off the barrel of Buxton’s bat on a check swing. Instead of a foul tip, however, catcher Henry Davis was called for a passed ball that allowed Kepler to score for a 3-0 lead.

Davis told home plate umpire Ryan Wills that the ball hit Buxton’s bat, and Pirates manager Derek Shelton came onto the field only for the umpire crew to confer and decide the call was not reviewable. Per MLB.com: “Calls involving a decision regarding whether a batted ball was foul are reviewable only on balls that first land at or beyond the set positions of the first- or thirdbase umpire.”

“It’s frustrating,” Jones said. “There’s really not much more to it. It’s not a reviewable play or anything like that. It’s just frustrating.”

Shelton said he knew he only could challenge if the batter was hit by a pitch, so he asked if the call would be changed if the review showed that it was a foul ball and was told it wouldn’t.

“So, there’s no sense in losing a challenge,” Shelton said, “and there’s nothing I can do.”

Davis reviewed video of the play after the game and saw his glove screened Wills’ view, so the Pirates catcher refused to blame the call or the run the Twins scored for the eventual outcome.

“First and foremost, we’re better than any one call. That’s not the deciding factor in the game,” Davis said. “Obviously when you get to the end, it feels like that when you look back in hindsight, but I had an opportunity to come through myself. We had plenty of opportunities. I think, as a unit, we’re better than any one call, so it definitely didn’t affect how we played or carried ourselves in the dugout the rest of the game or how we felt about our chances.”

The Pirates cut it to 3-1 in the second when Rowdy Tellez hit a line drive to right-center for a double, then scored on Jared Triolo’s single to left. Jones gave up doubles to Ryan Jeffers in the second and Miranda in the third but kept the Twins scoreless in both innings, then retired the side in the fourth with successive strikeouts of Castro and Santana to complete back-to-back 10-pitch innings. The Twins had a runner in scoring position in the fifth, but Jones got out of it.

Twins righty Bailey Ober had no such luck with two outs in the bottom of the fifth. Davis and Andrew McCutchen drew full-count walks, and Bryan Reynolds doubled down the right-field line to score Davis and cut it to 3-2. Connor Joe followed with a line drive past a diving Kirilloff to the North Side Notch for a two-run triple and a 4-3 Pirates lead.

“So, chasing that run,” Shelton said, “we can’t pin it to that situation.”

The Pirates lead didn’t last long as Kyle Nicolas relieved Jones and loaded the bases on a Jeffers single, hitting Castro with a pitch and walking Santana on four pitches. Lefty Justin Bruihl replaced Nicolas, but pinch hitter Lewis hit a fly ball to left for a sacrifice fly that allowed Jeffers to score the tying run.

Lewis led off the ninth with a deep fly ball to left that Jack Suwinski lost in the sun for a ground-rule double, but Aroldis Chapman got Correa to pop up to second and Kepler to line out to center. When Miranda hit a high fly to left, Taylor drifted over and called for the catch in front of Suwinski to make the final out.

Jhoan Duran retired the top of the order in the ninth to send the game into extra innings, which forced the Pirates to turn to Heller because they were without four pitchers in their bullpen. They used Carmen Mlodzinski as an opener followed by Luis Ortiz (58 pitches) Saturday, with All-Star closer David Bednar pitching in four of the previous five games and setup man Colin Holderman in three of four.

“It’s challenging,” Shelton said. “You have to manage from about the seventh inning on after that way, knowing that Heller is the last guy that we have — unless we go to a position player at some point. … Honestly, they used the back end of their bullpen in 7-8-9, coming at us, and we weren’t able to capitalize.”