By Tim Benz
April 8, 2019
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They needed that.
Yeah. It’s early in the season. And yes, what Pittsburgh baseball purist doesn’t like back-to-back 2-0 wins?
That’s what high-grade starts from Jordan Lyles and Joe Musgrove gave the Pirates on Thursday and Friday nights against the Reds. Twelve combined innings of starting pitching, no runs allowed.
But it was good to see the Pirates win a few games in the manner they did on Saturday and Sunday to complete their four-game sweep of the Reds at PNC Park over the weekend.
As we pointed out at Breakfast with Benz last week, the first few games of the Pirates season embodied every preconceived notion the baseball world had about these 2019 Pirates.
All starting pitching, not much else.
Through the first handful of games this season, the Bucs were relying on their starters to mask shaky defense, spotty relief work, and quiet bats.
But these last two victories over Cincinnati — by scores of 6-5 and 7-5 — looked a little different.
The ordinarily efficient Trevor Williams yielded four runs in six innings pitched, well off his nearly flawless form dating to the All-Star break last summer. And he finished the top of the sixth trailing 4-3 before the Pirates managed to win.
The Pirates still had their issues aside from Williams not being as sharp as he usually is. Keone Kela allowed the Reds to tie the game in the eighth with a homer, and Colin Moran made another error at third base.
But that was the only error of the game, and the homer by Joey Votto made him the only Reds batter to reach base against the Pirates bullpen in four innings that day.
Plus, getting 12 hits and six runs to come back twice in a game that lasted 10 innings is something worth being optimistic about after the hitters hadn’t been productive, especially with runners in scoring position.
The club had been 4 for 48 with runners in scoring position through their first four home homes.
Adding to that on Sunday, the Pirates plated seven runs on another dozen hits to support Chris Archer, who was decent but not dominant — six innings, three earned runs, seven strikeouts and two walks.
While the fielding slipped again, with Archer and Eric Gonzalez committing errors, the offense won the day with three doubles, a triple and two home runs.
One of them was Josh Bell’s towering 474 blast over the batter’s eye in center field.
That’s consecutive wins on days when the starting pitching wobbled off of the high beam it had set for itself.
That’s consecutive wins after the starters corrected to the mean where the bats were the constant, even if fielding and the bullpen still weren’t.
Progress.
Manager Clint Hurdle must be happy to know his team has that arrow in its quiver.
“You get some offense. You get some balls in the air. You ride some out of the ballpark,” Hurdle said. “It’s been all hands on deck. It was an opportunity today to finish (the series) off strong. (The Reds) took the early lead and we just kept fighting back. I like the way our team is playing.”
Richard Rodriguez even got the save Sunday — his first as a major leaguer. He was pressed into closing duty because both Kela and Felipe Vazquez were ejected for their roles in a benches-clearing incident earlier.
It was Rodriguez’ first inning without allowing a base runner in four chances this year.
“I’m really happy, especially after the first two outings, giving up home runs,” Hurdle said. “He stayed steadfast. He pulled his belt a notch tighter. That’s a big save for him.”
And it was for the team who now must go on the road for eight games. But they do so at 5-3, with Milwaukee being the only other NL Central team above .500 entering week three of the season.
Based on how things were looking to start the year, the Pirates should be very happy with that.
Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@tribweb.com or viaTwitter. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.
Categories: Sports | Pirates | Tim Benz Breakfast With
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