I was thinking about this more in contrast to the early May 2024 game against the Cubs in which Alonso was called out at the plate trying to score the tying run in the bottom of the 9th on a sac fly. And Mendoza didn’t hold back, or say “yeah, we could’ve scored more runs earlier” (which is true) — instead he was clear that he though the umpires had the call wrong and that was the deciding factor. I remember being very impressed with that answer and the candor.
The Pittsburgh game continues to bother me since it was so clearly in-the-moment the wrong decision, and all he had to do was say “yeah, a mistake, it won’t happen again.” But no such candor to be had.