PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) - Timely hitting by the Phillies in the late innings, including taking advantage of some Pittsburgh Pirates miscues in the 9th that allowed Philadelphia to add some insurance and take game 1 of this weekend series over the Pirates 6-1.
The Philadelphia Phillies loaded the bases in 3 of the 9 innings and stranded the bases loaded in all 3 of those innings. The Phillies were, however, able to bring home two runs in two of those innings on a Bryce Harper RBI single in the 7th and Jean Segura narrowly beat out an Infield Single to bring home a run in the 8th. Each run in the 7th and 8th came with two outs in the inning.
The Segura at bat was a battle as he kept fouling off pitches with a 2-2 count, 2 outs and the PNC Park crowd making noise to try and will Crick to finish the inning without giving up a run. Crick got the groundball to Bell and the race was on between Crick and Segura to the 1st base bag. 1st Base Umpire Tony Randazzo looked ready to call Segura out, but in a split second decision called him safe. The Pirates challenged the play and watching the replay, even in super slo-mo, it could not have been any closer as Segura beat Crick to the bag by centimeters.
After giving up 7 runs in 2/3 of an inning against Chicago last time out, it was a much better outing for Lyles tonight against Philadelphia. The Phillies loaded the bases in the 1st inning against Lyles, but he was able to strikeout J.T Realmuto and got Cesar Hernandez to flyout to left field to end the inning. The only blemish on the scorecard tonight for Lyles was a solo home run he gave up to Adam Haseley to leadoff the 5th inning.
The Pirates and Phillies play game two of the weekend series Saturday night at PNC Park at 7:05 pm. Pittsburgh will send Joe Musgrove (6-8, 4.31 ERA) to the mound against Zach Eflin (7-9, 4.16 ERA) and the Philadelphia Phillies.
Trevor Williams was originally scheduled to make the start for the Pirates, but it was announced during the game Friday night that he would be scratched from his start with severe flu like symptoms.