Final Score: Pirates 9 Diamondbacks 6
Why The Pirates Won: The offense shockingly woke up in the top of the 8th scoring 7 runs. The bullpen shut down the vaunted Diamondbacks offense by retiring the last 17 batters in a row. Bryan Reynolds came out of his slump big time. He went 4 for 4 with a walk. He had a home run, a double, driving in 3 runs and scoring 2. Isiah Kiner-Falefa only had one hit. It was a big one. His bases loaded double in the top of 8th scored 3 runs to tie the game. Reynolds followed that up 1 batter later with a 3 run homer to give the Pirates a 9-6 lead. Henry Davis who replaced the head injured Joey Bart hit a 2 run homer in the top of the 6th to get the ball rolling. At the time it made the score 6-2. To say that this was an unexpected win is a huge understatement. The one hundred club is down to one member, Jared Triolo. However, Spencer Horwitz is looking to join. Davis and Tommy Pham inched above .200 with each getting 2 hits.
Key Moments Of The Game: In the top of the 4th Mike Burrows was cruising along having given up 1 run on a Corbin Carroll home run to lead off the game. He got the first out of the inning. He gave up a triple and a single to make the score 2-0. Then Burrows became his own worse enemy. He walked the next batter. He muffed an easy ground ball by Carroll that loaded the bases. In came Joey Wentz and his luck got even worse. He gave up 3 singles in a row none of which were hit very hard. Before you could say this game is over the score was quickly 6-0. But it wasn’t over. Wentz got the next 2 batters. The Diamondbacks did not get a hit the rest of the game. Without Joey Bart getting hit in the head with a bat Henry Davis would have never been in the game. The Pirates finally got some big hits and pulled out an amazing win.
Next game: This afternoon Diamondbacks in Phoenix. Today is the unexpected rubber match with Paul Skenes going for the Pirates. Obviously it’s not been a given just because Skenes is pitching that the Pirates will win. There is always hope that a big comeback win will give the Pirates some momentum. Certainly if that is true then they must win today. The lineup should be pretty straight forward with McCutchen back as DH and Davis behind the plate. I hope Triolo is not given a start. We don’t have that much momentum.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 