On two separate occasions, it seemed like the typical weirdness that goes with the Padres coming to PNC Park was going to catch the Pirates tonight. The first occasion came in the third inning, shortly after the Padres took a 2-0 lead right out of the rain delay. Gregory Polanco drew a walk with one out, but got caught in no-man’s land when Justin Upton rushed and short-hopped Neil Walker’s apparent single to left field, getting himself thrown out at second. It was an impossible position for Polanco, especially on a muddy infield — from the angle he had he really could only make a 50/50 guess whether or not Upton was going to make the play and he was going to be out if he guessed wrong. Unfortunately, he guessed wrong. The Pirates picked him up when Andrew McCutchen doubled Walker in after a wild pitch, but the Pirates obviously left runs on the field when the inning ended with a 2-1 deficit and the bases loaded.
It happened again in the fifth inning when Andrew McCutchen absolutely hammered a pitch that looked like it was going to land two rows deep in the bleachers until Upton went into the stands and robbed him of the home run, Brian Giles-style. That was also followed by an RBI extra base hit, when Jung-Ho Kang “tripled” past the shambling zombie that previously identified as Matt Kemp, but when Kang was stranded at third the Pirates were looking at a 2-2 game after five innings instead of a comfortable 5-2 lead.
In the end, it didn’t matter. Francisco Liriano and the Pirate bullpen kept the Padres at two runs, and Gregory Polanco finally got his revenge on the universe and Upton by splitting the left-center gap with a two-out triple to score Sean Rodriguez and give the Pirates their final lead. I think that Liriano’s performance is particularly noteworthy here: a lot of people (including me) think of him as a pretty fragile pitcher, but he sat through a long rain delay in the second and still gave the Pirates six excellent innings tonight, with only one hiccup right out of the delay. It was a big start, given all of the things that were conspiring to keep the Pirates from taking the lead early in the game.
The Cardinals lost both ends of their double-header with the Cubs today, which means that they’re now only 4 1/2 games out of first in the NL Central. The four-game set at PNC Park this weekend is going to be fun. And stressful. It’s going to be very stressful.
Photo of Andrew McCutchen, Sean Rodriguez, and Gregory Polanco helping a groundskeeper out of the tarp during the rain delay, which is totally a thing that actually happened tonight by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images
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