Somehow, a game that Gerrit Cole left in the seventh inning with a 4-2 lead turned into a story about Deolis Guerra and Gorkys Hernandez. Actually, “somehow” is the wrong word because we know exactly how it happened: a two-run JD Martinez home run off of Tony Watson in the seventh inning. Regardless, on to Guerra, Hernandez, and a little bit of Neil Walker.
The Pirates have played a lot of brutal extra inning games on the road this year. There was the all-night game in Cincinnati on the season’s second night, the Lost Weekend in St. Louis, and the time in Chicago Gregory Polanco fell over instead of catching a fly ball. As these things go, the general rule is that the longer it goes on, the more ridiculous the ending is going to be and the more the loss is going to hurt.
Enter the top of the 14th inning. Chris Stewart singles with one out and is replaced as a pinch-runner by Gorkys Hernandez. When Tom Gorzelanny comes in to pitch to Gregory Polanco, Josh Harrison replaces Polanco at the plate. Harrison drives a ball deep into the right-center gap. Rajai Davis has to run a long way to make the play, but on the camera we see him dive and just barely miss the ball. This should be an easy run for the Pirates.
It should be, except that Hernandez got turned around between second and third, thinking Davis made the catch. He goes back around second and towards first, where Josh Harrison is waiting for him. Seeing Harrison causes him to panic, and so he beelines for third. Without touching second again. Upon review, he’s correctly called out at second. During the review process, Greg Brown called the play “unbelievable” over and over again, but honestly, given the things that we’ve seen on the road in extra innings against the Pirates this year, that was the wrong word. I believed it. I braced myself for the worst.
The worst never came, because Neil Walker followed up the gaffe with a (right-handed!) double to score Harrison, then Deolis Guerra escaped a jam in the bottom of the 14th by getting Victor Martinez to hit into a one-out double play with the go-ahead run on first base. A week ago, Guerra was a career minor leaguer who was having a great year and was maybe sniffing at the big leagues for one of the first times in his ten year career. A few days ago, he made his big league debut with a garbage time inning. Today, he threw three innings in relief to get his first big league win, and he did it by facing Ian Kinsler, Miguel Cabrera, and Victor Martinez in the bottom of the 14th inning. I mean, he only got one of those guys out at the plate, but who’s counting? He’s almost as unlikely a success story as John Holdzkom was a year ago. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that the Pirates keep finding these guys, but I am every single time.
And as for Cole: he wasn’t perfect, but his slider was nasty tonight and his control was much better than it’s been in a few of his more recent outings (six Ks, no walks in his 6 2/3). It was more than enough to get that last start behind him, at least, even if he faded a bit in the seventh and the bullpen couldn’t get him the win.
Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images
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