Pittsburgh Pirates Stay Hot On The Road, Win Third In A Row
By Marty Leap
The Pittsburgh Pirates started a four-game series at AT&T Park against the San Francisco Giants on Thursday night
After winning a series at Coors Field in Colorado, the second stop on the Pittsburgh Pirates’ three-city road trip took them to AT&T Park in San Francisco. Waiting for the Bucs at AT&T Park was old friend Andrew McCutchen and the Giants.
In Thursday night’s series opener the Pirates were 10-5 victors over the Giants. With the win, the Bucs are now 3-1 on their current road trip and 3-1 against the Giants this season. Furthermore, the win improved the team’s overall record this season to 60-56 and put them 4 games behind the Atlanta Braves for the second National League Wild Card spot.
Using the long ball, the Pirates would quickly grab a lead on Thursday night.
The Pirate damage came on back-to-back pitches in the top of the 2nd inning. First, Elias Diaz launched his 8th home run of the 2018 campaign. The two-run home run, which was hit off of Andrew Suarez, gave the Bucs a 2-0 lead.
Then on the next pitch, Josh Bell launched a 399-foot home run to left field. Bell’s 7th home run of the season, and first as a right-handed hitter, gave the Pirates a 3-0 lead.
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In 5 innings of work on Thursday night, Suarez allowed three runs on seven hits. He did not walk a batter, got tagged for two home runs, and he struck out four.
Ivan Nova started for the Pirates on Thursday and cruised early on. Nova did not allow a hit through the first 4 innings of the game, but he started to run into trouble in the bottom of the 5th inning.
Austin Slater hit a ringing single off of Nova to start the inning, this was followed by a run-scoring triple from ex-Pirate Alen Hanson. Two batters later Hanson scored on a Steven Duggar base hit, cutting the Pirate lead to 3-2 after 5 innings of play.
Nova would post a zero in the bottom of the 6th before his night ended. In 6 innings of work Nova allowed a pair of runs on three hits, he walked a pair, and struck out three.
Facing one of the Giants’ six ex-Pirates in the form of Mark Melancon in the top of the 7th inning the Pirates would add to their lead.
During the 7th inning the Bucs got help from the San Francisco defense as a fielding error by Joe Panik and a throwing error by Evan Longoria put runners on second and third with no one out. These errors would open the floodgates.
With one out in the inning Adam Frazier blooped his third hit of the night to left field. Gregory Polanco would then step to the plate with two outs and two men on base and he blooped a double down the left field line. This hit scored Frazier and made the score 5-2 Pirates.
Polanco’s double chased Melancon from the game and he was replaced by Pittsburgh native Derek Law. Law was greeted by a three-run home run from David Freese that busted the game open, giving the Pirates an 8-2 lead.
Richard Rodriguez fired a 1-2-3 bottom of the 7th inning for the Pirates, and then the offense got back to work. With one out and runners on the corners Colin Moran drove in a run with a pinch-hit single, Frazier followed with a sacrifice fly that gave the Pirates a 10-2 lead.
Clint Hurdle got the bottom of his bullpen some work at the end of the game on Thursday. Dovydas Neverauskas fired a 1-2-3 bottom of the 8th inning, and then Casey Sadler was given the ball for the 9th inning.
In his first outing since making a spot start against the Milwaukee Brewers on April 12th, 2015, Sadler was amped up to be back on the bound for the Bucs. Sadler suffered through some poor defense behind him that included an error, a misplay that easily could have been ruled an error, and an outfield misplay by Frazier. These miscues allowed hte Giants to score three runs, but Sadler still closed the door in the 10-5 victory.
After a slight blip on the radar over the weekend against the Cardinals, the Pirates are back to being one of the hottest teams in the National Leauge. Following their third consecutive win on Thursday night the Bucs are now 20-8 in their last 28 games.
The second game of this four-game series is scheduled for 10:15 p.m. on Friday night. Clay Holmes (3.65 ERA, 3.47 FIP) will look to give the Pirates a good start as the team makes a questionable move in starting him to push everyone else back a day, despite being off on Monday, meanwhile, the Giants will counter with veteran lefty Derek Holland (3.88 ERA, 4.05 FIP).