PNC Park– Gerrit Cole repeated his performance from five days ago as he allowed three runs over 5 2/3 innings while not allowing a walk in a Pirate 6 – 3 victory on Sunday afternoon.
Cole’s fastball was in the same place it was on Tuesday as it varied between 94 – 99mph while only striking out 1. He was efficient, though, as he was only at 80 pitches when he was removed with two out on the sixth while not allowing a walk for the second straight game in as many starts. “It was a completely different start (compared to his debut). At times, I was maybe a little too fast and for the most part I was right where I needed to be to go out there and compete.” Said Cole. “I was just fortunate that we had guys that just were tracking down every fly ball that was hit and all of those weird ground balls, they were all handled accordingly and, you know, nothing really imploded into something big.”
The Pirates got him early run support as they scored twice in the first when Garrett Jones hit a one out 2 RBI double into the right-center field gap to score Jordy Mercer and Andrew McCutchen.
The Dodgers would tie the game back up by scoring their lead-off men in the second and fourth innings. Yaisel Puig started the second with a single and stolen base and would be scored on a Tim Federowicz groundout to make it 2 – 1. Nick Punto would score the tying run in the fourth when he started with a single, advanced to second on a Puig single. And scored on an Andre Ethier RBI single to tie it at 2.
The Buccos would break it open in the fifth when Garrett Jones would single and Neil Walker walked. Pedro Alvarez, who grounded out with the bases loaded two innings earlier, came up and drilled a 2 – 2 pitch into the bushes for his team-leading 15th homer and 41st RBI to make it 5 – 2. “We’ve continued to push people out on base. We did it against Kershaw, we had it going again today, Greinke is a different pitcher on the road than at home. We needed someone to click one and Pedro clicked one to give us an opening.”
The two teams would then trade runs in the sixth with Andre Ethier collecting his second RBI of the game with a single and Alex Presley hitting his second homer of the season.
Mark Melancon and Jason Grilli (25th Save) would pitch perfect innings to close out the game and take the series from the Dodgers. It was the first time since the opening series of the 2010 season that the Pirates won a series against LA.
Starters Lines:
Cole (W, 2 – 0): 5 2/3 IN, 7 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 K. 80 Pitches (52 Strikes)
Greinke (L, 3 – 2): 5 IN, 8 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 3 K’s, 1 HR, 1 WP, 1 HP. 104 Pitches (63 Strikes)
The Pirates will now take to the road for a 9-game road trip starting in Cincinnati tomorrow night.
Tomorrow’s Starters:
(LHP) Francisco Liriano (PIT) 5 – 2, 2.36 ERA
(RHP) Mike Leake (CIN) 6 – 3, 2.76 ERA
Follow Travis for Pirates news and in-game updates on Twitter @TBerardi_OVA
(Photo Credit: AP Photo/Don Wright)
