Pirates get first sweep of the season,
Late-inning homer propels Pirates to sweep of Brewers
PIRATES 5, BREWERS 4
After taking an early, 2-0 lead, the Pirates saw the game flip on its head and were getting down to their final chances to do something about it. In the bottom of the seventh, trailing 4-3, they had gotten the tying run to third base with one out, but couldn’t drive it in.
In the eighth, outfielder Cole Tucker singled with one out, bringing up left fielder Bryan Reynolds, but Reynolds struck out looking. That left it up to Gregory Polanco, a veteran who had started to find himself offensively over the weekend but still entered the game with a .120 average.
If the Pirates didn’t score in the eighth, the would have to do it in the ninth against Brewers closer Josh Hader, one of the best in the league.
Hader could do nothing but watch, though. As Hader warmed up in the bullpen, Polanco swung on a 1-1 pitch from right-hander David Phelps and launched it 419 feet to rightcenter field for a homer, scoring Tucker and himself to take a 5-4 lead. Right-hander Richard
Rodriguez came on to close it out in the ninth, giving the Pirates their first series sweep of this season.
“We battled the whole game, you know, and we got the lead, they tied it, then they got the lead,” Polanco said. “We need to win this one. We need to fight. The opportunity came. I told Osuna in the on-deck circle like, ‘Hey, watch.’ Something to motivate yourself. That’s something that we do. ‘Hey, watch, I’m
about to hit this ball really hard. I’m about to put a good swing on the ball.’ That’s why I was watching it. I looked back to Osuna and said like, ‘You see? I told you.’ ”
Just as they did in their 12-5 win Saturday, the Pirates started early. Infielder Erik Gonzalez ripped a double off of the right-field wall to lead off the bottom of the first. A few pitches later, second baseman Adam Frazier singled him in.
In the second, the Pirates manufactured a run, as Polanco singled, stole second base, advanced to third on a fielder’s choice then scored on a single to left from center fielder Jarrod Dyson.
With that, things seemed to be developing similarly to the first two Pirates wins of the series, Friday and Saturday. With that, righthander JT Brubaker was cruising as the Pirates starting pitcher through the first few innings.
By the fourth inning, however, it was clear it wouldn’t be completely smooth sailing.
Colin Moran was run into while playing first base on the very first at-bat of the game. He stayed in for a while, but in the top of the third, he was replaced in the lineup by Cole Tucker and was checked for a concussion. In the bottom of the third, shortstop Kevin Newman exited, too, suffering what the Pirates called lower right abdominal muscle discomfort after striking out. He was replaced by JT Riddle.
So, then, the Pirates offense was forced to function without two of their hottest hitters, and for most of the middle innings, they struggled. Riddle and Reynolds manufactured a run in the sixth, but beyond that, there wasn’t much doing.
At the same time, Brubaker began to falter, allowing a run in the fourth and another in the fifth before exiting.
“It is a step forward [for Brubaker],” manager Derek Shelton said. “We need him to keep taking steps forward. We talked about teaching points, we talked about getting better. He threw 19 more pitches today. At the end, his stuff was not sharp and he started to get tired. It was hot. It was the longest he’s gone. So it’s a really good point, it’s a next step for him to take to be a quality major league starter. We need him to keep taking steps forward.”
In the sixth, right-hander Geoff Hartlieb allowed a two-run shot to Justin Smoak to make it 4-2 Milwaukee in the top of the sixth.
With that, the Pirates needed Polanco in the eighth, and the longest-tenured Pirates player showed up in a big way. His homer moves the Pirates to 7-17 this season, a bad mark, but maintains their three-game winning streak for the time being, as the Pirates will now hit the road for an eight-game road trip.
“Going into the series, we met up as a team, and we had a really, really good talk amongst each other,” Rodriguez said. “We really pumped each other up. We all recognized that we have plenty and enough to be able to do things like this, and we just reminded each other and we supported each other throughout the whole entire series. Guys have been playing super well, and I’m just grateful that I was able to key into that as well.”