Pirates stay hot with win
PITTSBURGH — Aramis Ramirez can’t really describe it but he can sense it, the feeling that permeates a clubhouse during one of those summers that offers the promise of an even more exciting fall.
At the moment, the Pittsburgh Pirates are swimming in it.
The veteran third baseman mashed a three-run homer off Chris Rusin, J.A. Happ won his third straight start and the Pirates improved to a season-best 30 games over .500 following a 4-3 win over Colorado on Saturday night.
Entering the final weeks of an 18-year career that has produced nearly 400 home runs but zero World Series rings, the three-time All-Star is trying his best to enjoy each improbable moment as they pile one upon the other with no signs of abating.
“It’s fun to be in a pennant race,” Ramirez said. “That’s what you play for as a player, especially for myself being my last year. I’ve got something to play for every single day, it
couldn’t be better than that.”
And at the moment, few teams in baseball are as hot as the Pirates. Pittsburgh is 14-3 over its last 17 games and 79-49 heading into the last day of August, heady territory for a franchise that won 79 games in a season twice between 1993 and 2012.
“The goal is to win the division,” manager Clint Hurdle said. “We’re doing some things that have some significance I’ll be mindful of later.
We’re in second place and we want to get to first place.”
The Pirates remained within 3 1-2 games of first-place St. Louis in the hyper-competitive NL Central behind another strong performance from Happ. Brought in to bolster the back end of the rotation, Happ (7-7) won his third straight decision after giving up one run and five hits in 5 2-3 innings and is 3-0 with a 0.78 ERA in his last four starts.