When the lineups were announced before this game and I saw Starling Marte on the bench with his hand problem and Andrew McCutchen out with a scheduled off day, I thought to myself, “Well, this is doable if Gregory Polanco does everything by himself.”
As it turned out, he almost did, though he got a helping hand from Josh Harrison. With the Pirates down 4-1 in the sixth inning, Harrison lead things off with a double. Two batters later, Polanco doubled him in, then scored on Neil Walker’s single. After Pedro Alvarez drew a walk, Walker came in on Jordy Mercer’s single. An inning later, Harrison smacked a one-out double, then after Corey Hart was intentionally walked, Polanco fought back from an 0-2 count against lefty Phil Coke to lace a single through the infield to bring home what turned out to be the winning run. With his three hits today, Polanco now has 11 hits in his last seven games, including four doubles and a homer. He seems so incredibly locked in at the moment that he’s hitting everything right on the laces. He’s come up particularly huge in these two Pirate wins to close out the Cubs series, and it’s nice to see him come into his own a bit after his early-season struggles. Also, Sean Rodriguez hit a ridiculously long home run early in the game. I mean, he hit it Starling Marte distance.
An honorable mention should go to the Pirate bullpen here; Jeff Locke struggled with his control some and was pinch-hit for with a 4-1 deficit after five innings. Radhames Liz gave the Pirates two really strong innings, striking out two in his first inning of work, then getting Anthony Rizzo to hit into an inning-ending double play in the second. Arquimedes Caminero rectified his struggles from the first game of this series by striking out both Jorge Soler and Kris Bryant in the eighth before getting Starlin Castro to pop out. Mark Melancon pitched an unremarkable ninth inning for the save. Melancon’s velocity was still way down and he still leaned on his curveball way more than we’re used to, but a win is a win.
As a final note: Wow was this series fun from a fan’s perspective. I mean, the Pirate bullpen was nerve-wracking and because of two bullpen meltdowns the split was disappointing, but seeing players like Polanco and Soler and Bryant all on the field at the same time … yeah. I’m not excited about the Cubs being good again, but it’s hard to complain about four baseball games like these four in a row.
Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images
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