Pittsburgh Pirates Takeaways & Throwaways – Game Four

The Pittsburgh Pirates trailed against the Cincinnati Reds all night on Friday until Starling Marte blasted a grand slam in the eighth inning to give them a 6-5 victory and their fourth straight win to start the season. Here are the takeaways and throwaways from game four.

Watch as @Starlingmart changes tonight's game with one swing of the bat! https://t.co/xnYY1kkpQ4#StarPower pic.twitter.com/e7iBAclNfr

— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) April 9, 2016

• The big moment of the night for the Pittsburgh Pirates as mentioned above was Marte’s grand slam that gave them their first lead of the evening. Marte added two other hits and a stolen base, so after starting the season a little slow he may be heating up while the weather remains cool.
• Jordy Mercer quietly put together a nice night on both sides of the ball. He collected two hits and also added some very nice throws from deep in the hole at shortstop. If Mercer can continue to play like this when Jung-ho Kang comes back, Clint Hurdle may be faced with a difficult decision when it comes to playing time since David Freese (other than the error) has looked good this season.
• Along with Freese, Francisco Cervelli also committed an error. Cervelli’s throwing error allowed Eugenio Suarez to advance to third after he stole second and he scored on Joey Votto‘s ground out. In his second inning of work during his season debut with the Pirates, Ryan Vogelsong uncorked a wild pitch that let Brandon Phillips score. These types of mistakes could have easily cost the team the win, but luckily Marte came up with a huge hit in the eighth inning.
• After looking brilliant on Opening Day, Francisco Liriano was not as sharp as he was this past Sunday. He walked four and allowed five hits over five innings. Obviously Liriano is not going to be as dominant in every start as he was on Opening Day, but hopefully he’ll be a little sharper his next time out. Of the 90 pitches he threw, just over half (47) went for strikes.

W – Vogelsong (1-0)

L – Hoover (0-1)

S – Melancon (2)

Line of the Night: Starling Marte had the line of the night after his grand slam. In four at-bats, Marte had three hits (two singles and the grand slam), scored one run, collected four RBIs and also stole a base.

Next up: The three game series continues tomorrow at 1:10pm when Gerrit Cole makes his 2016 debut. He’ll face off against Raisel Iglesias, one of the top young arms that the Reds have. Cole will look to keep the win streak going and win the series for the Pirates.