PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – The Pirates started June with a sweep of the Cardinals and finished the last full June series with a sweep of the Padres, final 4-3 Thursday afternoon.
The game started in a delay as the Pirates, MLB and the players talked about the safety of the conditions due to the smoke from the Canadian wildfires. After determining it was safe to go the Padres would jump out to a three-run lead in the second and build it to 4-0 in the fourth before the Pirates started pecking away at the lead. A Nick Gonzales sacrifice fly in the fourth, a Henry Davis RBI single drove home Andrew McCutchen in the sixth, then Jack Suwinski, Davis and an error allowed runs to score in the seventh.
“Being down four to nothing and continuing to claw back in the game,” said Pirates manager Derek Shelton. “As we’ve talked about numerous times, you don’t have to hit the ball far sometimes; you just have to put it in play. Jack with the tough left-on-left at-bat off Hill which is not easy, puts the ball and then we get the miscue there. Henry doesn’t hit a ball hard and it finds the outfield. Just continuing to move the ball forward.”
The bullpen allowed only one hit after starter Luis Ortiz gave up four runs on six hits, three walks and didn’t strike out a batter. Lefty Ryan Borucki started it with 1.1 innings followed by Dauri Moreta turning it around with a scoreless inning. Angel Perdomo went two-thirds of an inning before David Bednar came in to get his 16th save striking out three of the five batters he faced starting with a K to end the eighth inning.
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“They did a good job,” Shelton said. “Boruki came in; we didn’t know if they were going to pinch-hit, get in a situation where we forced them to make the move in the sixth and he did a really good job getting the first pitch out, went back out. From there on out, we executed pitches all the way to the end with David.”
"It's been a resilient group and we've been priding ourselves on that the whole year,” Bednar said. “We had a little rough patch, but over the course of the season, we're going to come out on top more often than not just because we have guys that have nasty stuff and just fill it up."
7 game streak
A line-drive single to left in the fourth inning extended Davis’ hitting streak to seven games. The rookie now reached base safely in nine of his first 10 career MLB games and his hitting .351, a .415 on-base percentage with 6 RBI.
“He grinds through every at-bat,” Shelton said. “You don’t see a lot of young players that come to the big leagues and their focus is every single pitch. I think that’s something we knew about him when we drafted him and we’ve seen it all throughout the Minor Leagues. For a young player to not ever give away not only an at-bat, but a pitch is why he’s had early success.”
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“I think just trying to be a tough out,” Davis said. “There’s a lot of ways you can help the team and it’s not always necessarily about getting a hit. But, finding ways to make things happen – just move the baton – get the next guy up.
18 straight for Cutch
McCutchen ran his on-base streak at 18 games, two hits including scoring after a lead-off double in the sixth. Only Shohei Ohtani (.500) and Ketel Marte (.477) have better on-base percentages than McCutchen (.467) during this stretch. He’s now batting .280 for the season with a .395 OBP.
“We just got the timely hitting when we needed it,” McCutchen said. “We had a couple plays go our way, too. That’s always a plus. It’s a mixture of some timely hitting and some plays on their end. We were able to get those runs.”
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Up Next
Pirates open a home series with the Milwaukee Brewers starting at 7:05p on Friday with RHP Freddy Peralta (5-7, 4.65) against Osvaldo Bido (0-1. 3.45 ERA). North Shore Tavern Leadoff Show with Josh Rowntree begins at 6p and then first pitch on 93.7 The Fan.