Pittsburgh Pirates Takeaways & Throwaways- The Lumber Co.

The Pittsburgh Pirates picked up where they left off at the end of April against the Diamondbacks on Tuesday night.

With a 12-1 win, the Pittsburgh Pirates have now put up 33 runs in four games against the Diamondbacks this season.

Takeaways-

• The Pirates jumped on the Diamondbacks early with three first inning runs off of a Gregory Polanco home run. The Pirates have put 13 first inning runs on the board in this home stand alone. The team has outscored their opponents 47-28 since the beginning of the Braves series have recorded a 5-2 record. In its last series against the Diamondbacks, the Pirates put up 21 runs in three games.
• The Pirates continued to pile on runs after the team’s three run first inning with three runs in the fourth, sixth and seventh inning. As stated earlier, the Pirates have put up runs in the first inning, 31 percent of the runs scored in the home stand to be exact. The team putting up big numbers in the later innings is a welcomed sight with some of the bullpen woes. The Pirates continued to manufacture runs with every position player crossing home plate except Chris Stewart and Jung Ho Kang.

Throwaways-

• Francisco Liriano seemed to lack control and felt the squeeze of the strike zone at times, especially in the sixth inning. Liriano walked five batters including walking the bases loaded in the sixth inning. While Liriano’s command has not been there at times this season, umpire Larry Vanover seemed to be awfully generous to the batters, not giving the pitchers anything on the corners.
• The Pirates’ bullpen worked well tonight, however, it would have been nice to get more than 5.2 innings out of Liriano considering the struggles that the relievers for the Pirates have faced this year. The bullpen has the fifth highest ERA in the majors, coming in at 4.31. They also rank No. 11 in the majors with 146.1 innings pitched.

W- Francisco Liriano (4-3)

L- Shelby Miller (1-6)

Line of the Night- Gregory Polanco went 3-5 with a five RBI and two runs scored against the Diamondbacks. Polanco has a .586 slugging percentage in last seven games.

Up Next- The Pirates and Diamondbacks will continue their series at PNC Park Wednesday evening. The Pirates will look to see which Jeff Locke will show up as he opposes Rubby De La Rosa. Locke is coming off a start in which he struck out six batters and gave up two runs against the Atlanta Braves. In his last start, De La Rosa gave up one hit to the Giants over 6.1 innings. De La Rosa went six inning against the Pirates on April 23, giving up one earned run in a Diamondbacks 7-1 win. Locke did not pitch against the Diamondbacks while the Pirates were in Arizona.