Walk-off specialist Newman delivers
Single in 9th inning drives in two runs
As Kevin Newman stepped to the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning, with the Pirates trailing the Minnesota Twins, 5-4, there was a sense of familiarity to the situation.
For one, the Pirates have had no trouble this season scoring in the ninth this season, often making late rallies in games. The problem has been that they were too far behind for their ninth-inning runs to make a difference in those games.
More important, though, is that Newman has had success in that spot before. Actually, he has had more success in it than anybody in baseball. Last season, he had four walk-off RBIs, one more than any other player.
So, after first baseman Colin Moran blooped a single into left field and left fielder Bryan Reynolds roped a double down the left-field line, it felt obvious that Newman would get a shot.
Right fielder Gregory Polanco struck out next, and then it was Newman’s turn, pinch-hitting for
infield drawn in, Newman, who was hitting .167 entering the game, bounced a ground ball up the middle, and it found a hole. Tucker and Reynolds scored, giving Newman his fifth walk-off RBI since the beginning of last season, and giving the Pirates (3-10) the walk-off win, 6-5, snapping a seven-game losing streak.
“Huge bit of relief for myself and the team to be able to come through when we really need one,” Newman said. “It’s a great feeling to come back. Hopefully, this is the start of something a little different than what we’ve had lately.”
Things looked bleak for most of the game Thursday at PNC Park.
In the top of the first inning, right-hander JT Brubaker, making his first major league start, worked his way into trouble, allowing a single and a walk from two of the first four batters he faced. With two outs, Twins first baseman Miguel Sano turned on a pitch and sent it over the left-field wall in a hurry. It was the first of three home runs the Pirates allowed Thursday.
“I didn’t feel like I missed,” Brubaker said. “Could it have been better? Could it have been out of the zone, down and in? But he’s a guy who likes the ball in, so he saw an in and just turned on it. Good for him. It was a good piece of hitting. Can’t do much about it.”
Brubaker, outside of the home run, performed pretty well given the circumstances.
He was forced into the starting rotation in place of Mitch Keller, who suffered an oblique injury in his previous start Sunday against the Chicago Cubs. Brubaker allowed four hits and two walks in the three innings he pitched, but he limited the damage done to just three runs.
It was known prior to the game that Brubaker would not go deep into it. Manager Derek Shelton said as much, wanting to be cautious since Brubaker has been pitching out of the bullpen this season.
That bullpen performed well, too. Right-hander Cody Ponce gave up two solo home runs in three innings. Chris Stratton and Sam Howard didn’t give up any runs.
“I can’t say enough about the job that our pitching did, too,” manager Derek Shelton said. “It was outstanding.”
Still, with the offensive struggles the Pirates have experienced this season, it wasn’t certain that the pitching would be good enough.
The only offensive spark they had shown up until the past two frames was in the second, when right fielder Gregory Polanco launched a breaking ball 446 feet to rightcenter field, one-hopping it into the Allegheny River for his first homer of the season.
“I’m still working on it, but it feels good to hit the first one,” Polanco said. “Seeing a breaking ball and adjusting every day, every at-bat I feel better. Feeling now like my hands are working more, so hopefully in the next three or four days, I get locked in.”
Beyond that quick burst, though, the Pirates got nothing against Twins starter Kenta Maeda. Only one other Pirates player reached base in Maeda’s six innings, when designated hitter Josh Bell drew a walk in the sixth.
In the eighth, the tide started to turn, though, as they manufactured a run to make it 5-4. Center fielder Jarrod Dyson fell into an 0-2 count to lead off the inning, but he battled back to draw a walk. He then stole second and third before Phillip Evans ground out to third and Dyson scampered home. That set the stage for the ninth-inning heroics. As Reynolds crossed home, the Pirates streamed out of the dugout. The celebration contained socially distanced highfives, as opposed to a dog pile.
“Any time you celebrate, I don’t care how far apart we’re standing,” Shelton said. “We can have people stand on the bridge and fake high-five as far as I’m concerned . ... I said at the beginning, we’ve continued to play hard and come up short You continue to grind. But to come out on the winning end of a game like that, against a team like that, it feels a lot better to smile.”