Having your starter hit the 100 pitch mark in the fifth inning while suddenly turning into a home run derby pitcher is rarely the best way to end a four-game losing streak, but the Pirates brought out the bats tonight and managed the trick anyway.
On many nights this season, it seems like the Pirates break out the bats early and then go into an offensive slumber and for at least a little while tonight they were headed in that direction again. After scoring three in the first and adding a single tally in the second and third, Jeremy Guthrie mostly silenced the Pirates until the seventh. He probably shouldn’t have come back out for the seventh, but he did, and then the Pirates jumped all over him and Brad Bergesen for four more runs in the seventh and eighth to put this one out of reach.
Clint Hurdle shuffled his lineup a bit tonight and got plenty of good things from the top of his order as a result. Jose Tabata and Josh Harrison both had two hits and scored twice, Tabata added two RBIs, Garrett Jones had a hit that drove in two runs, Andrew McCutchen reached base four times (three walks), and Neil Walker responded well to the O’s pitchers preferring McCutchen by racking up two hits and three RBIs, including the two-run double that put this game out of reach. The bullpen also turned in a huge effort with Chris Resop cleaning up James McDonald’s mess in the fifth, then tossing a scoreless sixth. Tony Watson and Jose Veras put the O’s down in order in the seventh and eighth and then the Pirates rallied and Tim Wood closed out the easy win.
A win ends a losing streak, even if the starting pitching was ugly, even if it looked for a while like the Bucs were going to give a five-run lead back. There’s a quick turnaround tomorrow that gives the Bucs a shot at .500 before taking on the vaunted Red Sox over the weekend.
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