In a game that saw a total of five home runs, six hit batsmen and both managers tossed from the game, the Pittsburgh Pirates outlasted the Cincinnati Reds 5-4 on Wednesday in a game they very much needed to win before they head to Wrigley Field on Friday. Let’s take a look at the takeaways and throwaways from the contest.
Takeaways
- Juan Nicasio scattered four runs and four hits over six innings to go along with five strikeouts and no walks. He was efficient on Wednesday, only needing 68 pitches (47 for strikes), and had the Pirates been winning late in the game, there is a decent chance he would have been allowed to go back out at least for another inning.
- The Pirates clubbed four home runs on Wednesday, all solo shots. Andrew McCutchen smacked his seventh of the season in the fourth and David Freese added his second in the next inning. Jung-ho Kang (3) and Josh Harrison (2) added the final two of the night in the seventh and eighth innings. Because of the lack of runners on base the damage was limited, but it’s great to see the team hitting for more power since they seemed to be missing that in the early weeks of the season.
Throwaways
- Both Starling Marte and Clint Hurdle were thrown out of the game in the sixth inning. Marte attempted to steal second and initially was called safe. After review, the umpires called him out because his hand came off of the base at the end of the slide. Both Marte and Hurdle argued that Brandon Phillips pushed Marte’s hand off the base, and the replay appeared to show they were right.
- Even after home plate umpire Jeff Kellogg warned both benches after each team had hit a batter, four more Pittsburgh hitters were plunked during the course of the game. It’s curious that even after the warnings it took a fourth hitter to get beaned before Kellogg finally tossed a Cincinnati pitcher from the game.
Line of the night: Still working his way back from the horrific leg injury that he suffered in September last year, Kang is already providing the team with plenty of offense.
In three at-bats, Kang collected two hits including his third home run of the season. In his limited appearances so far, Kang is slashing .333/.353/1.000. While it is highly unlikely that he’ll continue to slug 1.000, this small sample shows how sorely missed he was from the lineup.
Up next: The Pirates are off on Thursday before beginning a three game weekend series against the division rival Chicago Cubs. Francisco Liriano and Jason Hammel will kick off the action on Friday. Liriano has registered wins in his last two starts, pitching a total of 13.2 innings and only giving up three runs while striking out 16 against 10 hits and just two walks. Hammel, one of the many outstanding pitchers the Cubs have in their rotation, will look to stay undefeated and win his fifth game of the season. Hammel did not factor into the decision the last time out and walked more (4) than he struck out (3).
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