Pittsburgh Pirates Defeat Chicago Cubs 4-3, Win Series at Wrigley

Following yet another comeback victory the Pittsburgh Pirates have taken three of four at Wrigley Field to get back to .500 on the season

Early on this season the Pittsburgh Pirates have, for the most part, been playing an exciting band of baseball. This continued on Sunday afternoon when they overcame another early deficit to capture a 4-3 victory over the Chicago Cubs.

With the victory the Pittsburgh Pirates are now 8-8 on the season. This victory gave the team a victory in their four-game series at Wrigley Field, their first four-game series victory at Wrigley Field since 2006.

The series victory was a wild one for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Despite being outscored 29-12 across the series they were able to capture three of the four games in Chicago. The scoring discrepancy came due to the Pirates suffering a 21-0 loss on Saturday afternoon, which was the worst shutout loss in franchise history.

JT Brubaker battles through the flu bug

After struggling on Opening Day in St. Louis, JT Brubaker has steadily improved in each start since. While he last just 3 innings, Brubaker appeared to take another step forward during his time on the mound on Sunday afternoon.

Through 3 innings Brubaker had thrown just 44 pitches. However, it was mentioned on the telecast that Brubaker is one of a handful of Pirate pitchers battling with a flu bug. Odds are this is what led to the short outing.

Brubaker allowed 2 runs, just 1 earned, on 3 hits, 2 walks and 4 strikeouts in his 3 innings pitched. A rare Ke’Bryan Hayes error and tough luck on a bloop hit burnt Brubaker in the 1st inning. To Brubaker’s credit he put a foot down and did not let things unravel on him.

To be honest, if not for the Hayes error Brubaker easily could have gotten out of the inning without allowing a run. Thankfully, the team helped pick up both Hayes and Brubaker, a double by Hayes was part of this, to make the error and ensuing runs allowed a moot point.

Prior to being pulled Brubaker appeared to be getting into a groove. He retired 7 of the final 9 batters he faced, and had faced just one over the minimum due to inducing a double play ball in the 3rd inning. If not for the flu bug this likely would have been a long start for Brubaker.

Pirates offense scratches out just enough

Yoshi Tsutsugo has struggled to start the season but played a key role in the victory. Tsutsugo singled to start the 2nd inning. Following a Kevin Newman walked he would come around to score on a base hit by Ben Gamel to cut the Cub lead to 2-1.

Tsutsugo then tied the game at 2 with a sacrifice fly that scored Bryan Reynolds in the 3rd inning. Later in the 3rd inning Newman would double in Hayes to make the score 3-2 Pittsburgh.

The earlier error by Hayes would even out in the 4th inning when he reached on a throwing error by Jonathan Villar that allowed Diego Castillo to score, making the score 4-2 Pirates. As has been the case so many times early in the season the Pirate offense did just enough to rally for victory.

Bounced back outing from the bullpen

For much of the season the bullpen has been a strength for the Pirates. After taking their lumps in Saturday’s 21-0 abomination, the Bucco bullpen bounced back to help lead the way to victory on Sunday.

Dillon Peters finally allowed his first hit of the season, but struck out a pair in 2.2 scoreless innings pitched. Wil Crowe followed Peters and, like Peters, continued his dominant start to the season out of the Pirate bullpen.

Crowe allowed 3 hits, but did not walk a batter and pitched 1.1 scoreless innings of relief. Crowe also faced his first adversity of the season when the Cubs had runners on the corners with no one out in the 7th inning. Following a strikeout, pop out, and a fly out, Crowe escaped unscathed with a 4-2 Pirate lead still in tact.

Heath Hembree allowed a solo home run in the 8th inning, but retired the other two batters he faced to lower his ERA on the season to 2.84. After Chris Stratton overcame a throwing error he committed to get the final out of the 8th inning, it was David Bednar time in the 9th.

With the Pirates leading 4-3 in the bottom of the 9th Bednar found himself with Cub batters on the corners and just one out. It was not all Bednar’s doing as there was some bad luck involved, but to his credit he struck out the side to close out victory for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

We have discussed it here but Derek Shelton’s management of the bullpen has improved ten fold so far this season. It helps that his bullpen has, for the most part, pitched extremely well this season. This continued in Sunday’s victory

Pirate overcome sloppiness to secure victory

To the credit of the Pirates they overcame a lot of sloppiness on Sunday. They committed a pair of errors in the game, including a rare error by Hayes in the 1st inning that opened the door for the Cubs to score an unearned run. To be honest, without the error Chicago may not have scored in the 1st.

They overcame Stratton’s throwing error in the 8th inning, as well as a bloop hit into shallow right field in the 7th inning that should have been caught. There was plenty of sloppiness by the Pirates on Sunday afternoon, but Shelton’s crew battled through to secure the victory.

After a day off on Monday the Pittsburgh Pirates will return to action at PNC Park on Tuesday night. In the first game of a three-game set against the Milwaukee Brewers the Pirates will send righty Mitch Keller (6.23 ERA, 3.93 FIP) to the mound as he looks to build upon his strong start, also against the Brewers, last time out. Milwaukee is scheduled to send Brandon Woodruff (4.30 ERA, 2.95 FIP) who out dueled Keller in that start to the mound.