The Pirates first long road trip of the season sure had its ups-and-downs as the Pirates were swept by the Milwaukee Brewers and headed to Chicago where they won the first two games of the series and then lost by three touchdowns on Saturday. After all of that, the Pirates managed to win the series at Wrigley on Sunday afternoon and finished the road trip 3-4.
This game had just about everything you could see from a baseball game on and off the field, with JT Brubaker getting off to a sluggish start, a beer cup snake in the outfield to a bird sitting in the outfield while Wil Crowe was on the mound.
As I just mentioned, the Pirates starting pitching woes in the first third of games continued as Brubaker allowed one earned run and another off of a rare Ke’Bryan Hayes error, but he settled in afterwards and gave the Pirates three solid innings which featured four strikeouts and only three hits allowed.
Derek Shelton handed things off to the bullpen again, with Dillon Peters, Wil Crowe, Heath Hembree, Chris Stratton and David Bednar pitching the final seven innings combining for seven strikeouts two walks and one earned run.
Of course the biggest story from this game came from Bednar, who saw himself in a rare bases loaded situation but pumped fastball after fastball past Wilson Contreras and Frank Schwindel to secure the victory.
As far as the offense went, Michael Chavis and others had rough outings, but Diego Castillo, Bryan Reynolds, Ke’Bryan Hayes and Yoshi Tsutsugo would all score runs while Kevin Newman went 2 for 3 and gave the Pirates a lead they would never surrender in the third inning.
The Pirates are off on Monday and then meet the Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres at PNC Park, and head back home with an 8-8 record.
Inside The Bucs Basement 