Pittsburgh Pirates defeat Chicago White Sox 3-2 as shutout streak ends

The scoreless innings streak may have come to an end at 35 Wednesday night, but the Pittsburgh Pirates still prevailed 3-2 over the Chicago White Sox. Jeff Locke gave the Pirates six strong innings, surrendering just two runs on three hits and two walks. He also registered a season-high eight strikeouts in the game and helped push their current winning streak to seven. The win puts the Pirates at 38-27 and only five games back of the division leading St. Louis Cardinals, who finally lost Wednesday night.

The Pirates jumped out to an early lead against John Danks in the first inning when Josh Harrison doubled to left field and moved to third on Starling Marte‘s sacrifice hit. Andrew McCutchen then followed up Marte with a single to score Harrison. With McCutchen still on base, Jung Ho Kang blasted his fourth home run of the season to right field to give the Pirates a three-run lead before Locke even picked up the baseball.

The White Sox would eventually get on the board in the sixth inning and end the Pirates’ scoreless innings streak when Melky Cabrera doubled to bring Adam Eaton home and, later that inning, when Avisail Garcia singled to score Cabrera. But once Locke exited the game after the sixth inning, the bullpen came in and did a fantastic job. Arquimedes Caminero pitched the seventh inning and allowed no hits and, surprisingly, did not strike anyone out. Tony Watson covered the eighth inning by not allowing any base runners while striking out one. Mark Melancon came in for the ninth and nailed down the win with his National League-leading 22nd save of the season.

What Stood Out

While the scoreless inning streak did come to an end, there are still a lot of positives to take away from last night’s game. Even though Locke’s pitch count was at 99 when he left, he did have four innings where he faced the minimum number of batters. Locke is obviously not the type of pitcher that you want to call on to win a playoff game, but performances like this make him a decent option as a fifth starter. The question is whether he can continue to churn out starts like this every fifth day.

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Francisco Cervelli also saw his scoreless inning streak end at 56 consecutive innings caught, which is believed to have tied the all time record for the Pirates, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. No one expected him to duplicate the performance of Russell Martin in 2014, but a statistic like this shows how good he is at calling a game and staying in tune with his pitching staff.

Two other points to focus on are that Marte left the game in the ninth inning due to discomfort in his left ankle and that Corey Hart finally started a game and went hitless. More information should be available today on Marte’s status for Thursday night’s game, but management should have more than enough information on Hart to make the decision to cut ties with him. Both Alen Hanson and Jaff Decker are younger, better bench options waiting in Indianapolis. With Sean Rodriguez taking over as the right-handed bat at first base, Hart has no place on this team.

What’s Next

The Pirates will look to sweep the home-and-home series during Thursday night’s series finale at 8:10 PM. The Pirates will send potential all-star and NL Cy Young hopeful Gerrit Cole to the mound to face Jeff Samardzija. Samardzija’s ERA has become inflated after a few bad outings recently, so the Pittsburgh hitters will still need to bring their A-game against a pitcher who could be on the move in the next few weeks.

Next: Should Francisco Liriano get consideration for all-star game?