Pirates survive late Rockies rally in 8-6 win

PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) - The Pirates survived a late comeback effort by the Rockies in an 8-6 win Sunday afternoon at Coors Field.

Pittsburgh had trouble scoring runs in the first two games of the series, that wasn't the case on Sunday afternoon. After trailing 1-0 in the top of the 4th, Nick Gonzales blasted a 2-run home run to give the Pirates the lead.

"He's been swinging the bat pretty well here. He had that big hit the other night going oppo off the wall and then he got a hold of that one. Line drive up the middle. He's been swinging the bat really well for us," said Don Kelly.

Jared Triolo hit an RBI triple in the top of the 5th, making it 3-1 Bucs.

In the 6th the Pirates scored two more, Tyler Callihan hit and RBI single and Jake Mangum doubled in Callihan.

Bryan Reynolds extended his on-base streak to 27 games after a double in the top of the fourth, he crushed a 3-run 433 foot home run to make it 8-1 Pirates and it looked like they were going to run away with the game after that. Colorado didn't go down without a fight.

"Anytime you can add on at Coors, those first two games were a pretty good outlier as far as scoring goes here. Remembering the game last year it was 17-16. You have to keep scoring when you play here," said Kelly.

In the bottom of the 8th inning T.J. Rumfield blasted a 3-run shot off Dennis Santana to cut the Pirates lead to 8-4.

Kyle Karros hit an RBI double to make it 8-5 in the bottom of the 9th. Jake McCarthy swinging bunted the ball to Brandon Lowe. Lowe had an errant throw to first and Karros scored on the error to make it a 2 run game. The Rockies had first and third with one out but Gregory Soto was able to get Willi Castro to ground into a game ending 6-4-3 double play.

Jared Jones exited the game after an 87.9 mph comebacker hit him in the elbow in the bottom of the 3rd inning. The X-rays came back negative.

"Coming off of Tommy John and working hard to get back off that is a long road and for him to take a ball off the elbow, just glad to hear that it sounds pretty good right now," said Kelly.

Johan Ramirez and Evan Sisk pitched four scoreless innings in his relief.

"It was huge, Yohan coming in and pitching two scoreless. They both had some traffic, Yohan at the beginning of the outing and Sisk at the end but they both found a way to slow things down and get through it. That was huge for us," said Kelly.

The Pirates finished the road trip with a 3-3 record and they are back to .500 at 39-39 on the season. They come home to host the Mariners Tuesday night at PNC Park. It will be Mitch Keller (5-4, 4.92) vs George Kirby (5-7, 4.10).