Pittsburgh Pirates: Tyler Anderson & the Bullpen Lead Way to Victory

Wednesday night the Pittsburgh Pirates took down the San Diego Padres in the third game of their four-game series to take 2-1 series lead

Wednesday night was the return of former Pirate starting pitcher Joe Musgrove to PNC Park. After being traded to his hometown San Diego Padres this offseason, this was Musgrove’s first start against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Musgrove was coming off of his no-hitter in his most recent start. While this was the first no-hitter in Padre history, it did not intimidate the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Bucco bats scored a pair of runs off of Musgrove on their way to defeating the Padres 5-1 to improve to 5-7 on the season.

Gregory Polanco shows flash of his old self

Pirate right fielder Gregory Polanco got the scoring going early when he blasted a no doubt solo home runs over the top of the Clemente Wall in the bottom of the 2nd inning. This gave the Pittsburgh Pirates a 1-0 lead and was the start of a big night for Polanco.

In the Pirate victory Polanco went 2-for-2 with his home run and a pair of walks. This was the best Polanco has looked at the plate this season. Hopefully, this will be the start of Polanco pulling out of the rut he has seemingly been in since 2019.

Bats stay hot 

The Pittsburgh Pirates were able to keep the bats hot this game as they added on 4 other runs throughout the rest of the game to make their total over the last two games to be 13. In the 5th inning Colin Moran, who is off to a strong start this season, hit a line drive single to score Adam Frazier to take a 2-0 lead.

The next time that the Pirates scored runs was in the 8th inning when Erik Gonzalez singled into right field with the bases loaded. This scored a run. Then Frazier singled in 2 more runs, and this would be the end of the scoring for the Buccos on the day.

Pitching control took a 180 from yesterday

In Tuesday’s Pirate victory the pitching for both teams was abysmal as there were 12 combined pitchers and run allowed between the two teams. Wednesday was a different story for the Pirates, though.

Tyler Anderson started the game today and went 5.1 innings in a great bounce-back game after his rough outing last time. Anderson was charged with one run due to the runner that he left on second for Duane Underwood Jr. coming around to score. Other than that it was a great outing for Anderson, who looks to be one of the top arms for this rotation.

Underwood Jr. allowed the inherited runner to score in the sixth. Other than that he was great, striking out 3 in his 1.2 innings of work and only issuing a single walk. The third pitcher of the day was Sam Howard. The lefty was effective in getting a quick 1-2-3 inning in the 8th.

Lastly, Chris Stratton came into close out the game in the non-save situation. Stratton allowed a single to Jurickson Profar, but got the next batter, Jake Cronenworth, to ground into a game ending double play. This allowed Stratton to face only three batters in his inning of work.

What’s next  for the Pirates

The Pirates look to take the series win against the Padres in Thursday matinee game as Mitch Keller (4.50 ERA, 3.89 FIP) takes the bump against Chris Paddack (5.63 ERA, 3.14 FIP) in an early 12:35 PM EST matchup.