Taillon exits early, Arrieta dominates in Phillies rout

Jake Arrieta dominated a badly overmatched Pirates’ lineup and Jameson Taillon made the earliest exit of his career as the Phillies stomped the Pirates, 7-0.

After an easy first inning, Taillon came unglued in the second, largely because he didn’t seem to have any command of his pitches. Rhys Hoskins led off by lining a 3-2 pitch into the seats in the left field corner. The next three batters then reached on a walk, hit batsman and bunt single. Taillon was on the verge of getting out of the jam when he struck out the catcher and Arrieta. Unfortunately, he went to another full count on Cesar Hernandez, who lined a single to center. With the runners going, all three scored. A walk and a line single to left on yet another full count followed and Taillon’s night was over, with five runs allowed and only five outs recorded. Tyler Glasnow kept the run total at five by fanning Hoskins.

Glasnow ended up with a typically part-encouraging, part-discouraging outing. He retired the first seven hitters he faced. Then in the fifth inning, he struggled with the strike zone and allowed two runs. He came back out for the sixth, but after starting with a strikeout of Arrieta — his seventh whiff — he walked the next two hitters and departed. Richard Rodriguez rescued Glasnow with a double play ball on his second pitch. Rodriguez had an entirely encouraging outing, which may calm the Pirates’ frantic desire to find multi-inning relievers. He put up two and two-thirds scoreless innings, allowing two hits and fanning six. Oddly, considering the score, that gave the Pirates 16 strikeouts in eight innings.

There’s little to say about the Pirates’ hitters. Arrieta looked like his 2015 self and simply blew them away for seven innings. He fanned ten and allowed very little hard contact. The only baserunners came on two walks and an infield hit by Francisco Cervelli.

The Pirates fanned twice more against reliever Yacksel Rios in the eighth, with Max Moroff picking up a pinch-hit single for their only other hit of the game. They then went down in order in the ninth.