Pirates Morning Report: Another Hot Starter Crushed

Final Score: Pirates 13 Diamondbacks 3

Why The Pirates Won: For the second straight game the Pirates faced a hot pitcher and sent him packing in less than 5 innings. This time it was Zac Gallen, who had not lost a game since the opener in March., The Pirates simply racked him up for 8 runs on 8 hits and 4 walks, in 3 and 2/3 innings. They added 5 more runs against the bullpen to win going away. There were lots of players who got into the act. Bryan Reynolds hit his first home run in about 6 weeks and drove in 4 runs. McCutchen, Bae, and Hayes all had 3 hits. No one had a bigger game than Josh Palacios, who had 3 hits, a walk and drove in 3 runs, including the 2 that gave the Pirates a 3-1 lead. He plays because the Pirates refuse to play Rodolfo Castro against right handed pitching. This is the first productive game a Castro replacement has had for a long time. Maybe, this will give Palacios a confidence boost and he will start hitting. Johan Oviedo pitched a solid 6 innings giving up 1 run on 2 hits, walking 3 and striking out 7 batters. DUJ came in to start the 7th but developed forearm tightness and had to leave the game after giving up 2 runs in 1/3 of an inning. The rest of the bullpen shut the Diamondbacks down. Another impressive win for the Pirates to send them to 24-20.

Key Moment Of The Game: The Pirates big 7 run inning in the bottom of the 4th was extended on an error by the Diamondbacks third baseman. The Pirates scored 5 more runs after the error to essentially sew up the game.

Next Game: Late this afternoon, Diamondbacks, in Pittsburgh. Mitch Keller takes the hill for the Pirates this afternoon, against Brandon Pfaadt who is making is 4th Major League start. He has not gone past the 5th inning in the first 3 but did pitch well in his last outing against the Giants, giving up only 1 run in 5 innings. The Pirates need to keep the momentum going since we are going with our best pitcher at the moment in Mitch Keller. The bats need to stay hot, so we can put it to the Diamondbacks for the 2nd straight game.