Here is a stat you might not expect:
The Pirates went 9-10 against the Brewers this year.
That’s not great, obviously, given the Brewers’ standing in the division and the Pirates’ standing in the division and the fact that 12-7 instead of 9-12 would have the Pirates in first place in the NL Central right now, but it’s also not the unmitigated season disaster against the Brewers that it seemed like it might’ve been on Thursday night.
Yesterday’s comeback was more or less emblematic of the entire season series between the two teams. The Pirates took a drubbing early on, when Francisco Liriano never really got into a groove following the short rain delay before the game started. Joe Blanton relieved Liriano and got out of his mess in the third inning, but gave up a run of his own in the fourth. That put the Brewers ahead 6-1, just as the Cardinals started to pull away against the Reds, and that caused the recurring refrain of the 2015 season for Pirate fans to crop up again:
Okay, this looks bad. Wait, does it? There’s still time left. Maybe it’s fine. It’s probably fine.
And so with one out in the bottom of the fourth, the Pirates finally got to Taylor Jungmann with a single, two walks, a bases-loaded Travis Snider ground-rule double, and a Jordy Mercer sac fly. The Pirates got two more in the seventh when Neil Walker, Andrew McCutchen, and Jung Ho Kang strung singles together after Josh Harrison reached on an error. The Pirates finally won in the 11th when Josh Harrison singled home Sean Rodriguez.
And so the Pirates and Brewers are done this year. I wish the Pirates had done better than 9-10, but the took the last three from the Brewers at PNC Park in three games that were more or less must-win for their NL Central hopes, (the 4 1/2 the Pirates were down on Friday and the 2 1/2 they’re down right now are worlds apart) and they punctuated it with a comeback from a 6-1 deficit that almost looked easy. The season is 142 games old, the Pirates have won 86 times, the Pirates are 2 1/2 out of first place. It’s not perfect, but I’ll take it.
Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images
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