Pittsburgh Pirates Start Home Stand With Win Against The Mets

After losing the first game of their past seven series, the Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the New York Mets in the first game of their three-game weekend series on Friday night

For the second weekend in a row the Pittsburgh Pirates find themselves playing a three-game series against the New York Mets. The Pirates entered the series owning a 3-16 record since the All-Star Break. This included being 0-6 in series played, with the team having been swept in three of those six series.

Entering this series the Mets were on the complete opposite side of the spectrum. The Mets were winners of seven games in a row entering Friday night to pull within 4 games in the Wild Card race. This led to the Mets not only holding onto most of their potential trade chips at the trade deadline, but also being buyers.

While the Pirates entered Friday’s game as the team that was struggling and the Mets were the hot squad, it was the Pirates that walked away victorious. Led by some strong infield defense and plenty of offense, the Pirates were 8-4 victors over the Mets on Friday night. With the win, the Pirates are now 48-61 this season.

Friday night’s series opener featured the same pitching match up as last Saturday’s 3-0 Mets victory as Pirate righty Trevor Williams squared off against Met lefty Steven Matz. In that contest Williams turned in his best start since coming off the IL and Matz pitched his first career complete game.

Friday’s game, unfortunately, would not get off to a good start for Williams.

On the first pitch of the game Jeff McNeil doubled. A Pete Alonso double, Robinson Cano single, and a Wilson Ramos ground out led to the Mets grabbing a 2-0 lead. 23 pitches later, Williams was finally out of the 1st inning.

Williams struggles continued in the 3rd inning.

With two on and one out, J.D. Davis smashed a doubled over the head of Starling Marte in center. This made the score 3-0 Mets. Williams then got a pair of ground outs to limit the damage.

With Matz’s scoreless inning streak against the Pirates up to 12 innings, the Bucco bats *finally* got to him in the 4th.

Bryan Reynolds walked and Marte singled to start the inning. Josh Bell then ripped a single into left field to score Reynolds, cutting the Mets lead to 3-1. Jose Osuna, who entered the inning with the lone Pirate hit and was having an excellent defensive game at third base, came through with a run-scoring single.

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Melky Cabrera then smashed a double off the top of the bullpen door in center field. Cabrera missed a 3-run home run by about a foot, nonetheless it was a 2-run double that gave the Pirates a 4-3 lead. Elias Diaz blooped a one out single into center field, extending the Pirate lead to 5-3.

In a crazy turn of events Matz went from dominating the Pirates to failing to get out of the 4th inning. In 3 2/3 innings of work he allowed 5 runs on six hits and a walk. All of this damage except for one of the base hits came in the 4th inning.

To Williams credit, he settled in after the 3rd inning. The Pirate righty retired the final 11 batters he faced on his way to holding the Mets to 3 runs in 6 innings of work. He allowed six hits, walked three, and struck out a pair. Best of all, he did not allow a home run. Since coming off the IL, nothing has plagued Williams more than the long ball. Prior to this start, he had allowed at least one home run in seven consecutive starts.

After initially struggling when he came off the IL, Williams has started to settle back into his regular form. In his last 18 innings of work Williams has allowed just 6 earned runs. This comes out to a cool 3.00 ERA.

Lefty Francisco Liriano replaced Williams in the 7th inning. After retiring the first two batters of the inning, which included recording his 1,800th career strikeout, Liriano allowed a two out single to Michael Conforto. Acting Pirate manager Tom Prince would then go to the bullpen.

With the right-handed hitting Alonso representing the tying run, Prince went to righty Richard Rodriguez. Alonso hit a ground ball single that would sneak through the infield. Rodriguez then got Robinson Cano to pop the ball up into shallow center field. The inning appeared over, but Kevin Newman watched the ball go off his glove. Newman was given an error, Conforto scored, and the Mets had cut the lead to 5-4.

Newman would quickly redeem himself.

Ramos hit a ground ball deep in the hole at shortstop that required Newman to range far to his right. Newman went into a slide, back handed the ball, fired it across the infield, and nailed Ramos at first to end the inning.

Newman’s redemption continued with a one out single in the bottom of the 7th inning. After Reynolds singled to extend his hitting streak to seven games, Marte crushed a 3-run home run to left field. His 19th long ball of the season extended the Pirate lead to 8-4.

In the 8th inning Kyle Crick took the mound with the job of defending the Pirates 8-4 lead. Crick allowed a two out single, but retired the other three batters he faced. This included a pair of strikeouts as his nasty slider and quick pitch/95+ MPH fastball combo were on full display Friday night.

Having not pitched in over a week, Felipe Vazquez took the mound in the 9th inning looking to get some work in. Felipe would do his thing and retire the Mets in order. It was capped off by striking out Alonso looking with a 99 MPH fastball.

Obviously, the Pirates have nothing left to play for this season. That said, winning is still always more fun than losing. Especially when you have only won 3 times in your last 19 games. Friday was a feel good night at PNC Park.

The second game of the series is scheduled for 7:10 on Saturday night. Chris Archer (5.58 ERA, 5.73 FIP) will make the start for the Pirates while the Mets will counter with the newly acquired Marcus Stroman (2.96 ERA, 3.52 FIP). This will be Storman’s Mets debut.

After losing the first game of their past seven series, the Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the New York Mets in the first game of their three-game weekend series on Friday night

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