Pittsburgh Pirates Keep Hitting Home Runs

The Pittburgh Pirates have hit 115 home runs this season. The team continues to get bombs on the road and have now homered in 19 straight road games.  Andrew McCutchen has hit 22 homers, Pedro Alvarez 21, and Neil Walker has 10.

Yesterday, Garrett Jones crushed his 16th homer of the year in the fourth inning. It gave the Pirates four players with double digit home run totals and also put the Pirates into the lead.  But James McDonald was unable to hold it and the Pirates  lost to the Houston Astros putting them three games behind the white-hot Reds.

The Pirates have four other players with at least eight bombs–Michael McKenry has nine, and then three players have eight–Casey McGehee, Rod Brajas, and Alex Presley.

Jones has been the hot bat for the Bucs with three bombs in his last six games, plating 12 teammates over his past 11 games. He has four doubles, a triple and six homers over his past 22 games.

The Pirates 115 homers is good for second in the National League, five behind the Milwaukee Brewers. The Pirates surprassed their homerun total from last season in dramatic fashion when rookie Starling Marte crushed the first pitch he saw in the majors. It only took the team 98 games to do so.