Saturday night marked the first FanJam of the season for the Pirates. \u00a0In this edition, the Pirates brought the top-selling R&B group in music history Boyz II Men to PNC Park to perform in front of a sellout crowd following their game with the Kansas City Royals. \u00a0With both teams sporting their throwback Negro League jerseys, Pirates Manager Clint Hurdle seemed to take some lessons from the throwback group.<\/p>\n
The Pirates sent their ace James McDonald to the mound, but he was anything but that tonight. \u00a0After allowing a two-run home run to Yuniesky Bentancourt in the third and an RBI single to the opposite pitcher Vin Mazzaro in the fourth, the Pirates found themselves down in an early 3-0 hole.<\/p>\n
“He (McDonald) gave us what he had with what he had,” Hurdle said. \u00a0“The fastball command wasn’t where we’ve seen it \u00a0and he really struggled to find any secondary pitches.”<\/p>\n
But then Hurdle found his inner Boyz II Men and while it looked like the “Water Runs Dry” for his team for the night, he got “Down on Bended Knee” and told his team we aren’t out of this “Until the End of the Road.” \u00a0Ok, Hurdle didn’t say any of that, but with what transpired, he could have.<\/p>\n
In the bottom of the fourth, Mazzaro walked Pedro Alvarez and hit Jose Tabata to start the inning. \u00a0Rod Barajas would then follow with a single to load the bases. \u00a0Clint Barmes would come on and squeeze a single just past the shortstop to plate the first run of the ballgame for the Pirates. \u00a0And then in one moment, we saw the Royals and Pirates both take out their starting pitchers in the bottom of the fourth inning as Matt Hague would come to the plate.<\/p>\n
“We felt that if we had a chance to get back in the game that we were going to hit Matt,” Hurdle said. \u00a0“Once it fell that way we said if we had a couple guys on, if Matt had a chance to get up, we were going to go that way.”<\/p>\n
Hague would send what looked to be a routine fly ball to right field, but Eric Hosmer was unable to play the ball and instead fired home to try to gun out Tabata at home plate. \u00a0The force out beat Alvarez home, but home plate umpire Jim Wolf ruled Royals catcher Brayan Pena bobbled the throw which allowed Tabata to score.<\/p>\n
“It was one of those weird plays in baseball that I never seen in my life and we scored a run,” Hague said. \u00a0“It was a really weird inning.”<\/p>\n
Alex Presley kept the weird inning alive as he was able to beat out a slow grounder that Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas decided to eat up. \u00a0Groundouts by Neil Walker and Garrett Jones would plate two more runs to give the Pirates a 5-3 lead, one they wouldn’t relinquish.<\/p>\n
“From out standpoint, it was probably all about location,” Hurdle said of the fourth inning. \u00a0“It wasn’t loud, but balls were finding grass and finding spots. \u00a0Tough inning if you’re playing defense. \u00a0We got some breaks.”<\/p>\n
The Pirates had to turn to Chris Resop, Jared Hughes, Doug Slaten and Joel Hanrahan to put together five shutout innings to seal the victory.<\/p>\n
“We wanted to go Resop first and play off the momentum of the other inning,” Hurdle said. \u00a0“We knew Slaten was the first left-hander if we needed him and hopefully Hughes would be the guy. \u00a0The one rock in our shoe was if we went extra-innings, I needed an arm out there late. \u00a0It wasn’t going to be Jason Grilli or Hanrahan to pitch multiple innings. \u00a0It was getting a little dicey, but it was the plan that we had.”<\/p>\n
With the Pirates now four games over .500, Hurdle said he was happy to see a packed house.<\/p>\n
“We’re playing pretty good and they’re going to come,” Hurdle said.” \u00a0If we play well, the fans are going to come. \u00a0Plus, it’s summertime. \u00a0It’s a great place to be in the summer. \u00a0You got Melissa Etheridge playing downtown, you got Boyz II Men here, you got the Pirates. \u00a0You got a lot of things going on.”<\/p>\n
Hague agrees and said it’s a lot easier to play with the fans there.<\/p>\n
“They give us a lot of energy playing and it always gets you a little extra motivated,” Hague said.<\/p>\n
And in case you were wondering, Hurdle did say hello to the group.<\/p>\n
“I said hello and they said hi back,” Hurdle said.<\/p>\n
When asked if they said hi back in harmony, Hurdle simply said, “They do everything in harmony.”<\/p>\n
Sort of the like the Pirates. \u00a0With the hitting coming along and the team only one game out of first place, Hurdle is watching his 25 men go from boys to men before his eyes.<\/p>\n
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Photo credits: Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saturday night marked the first FanJam of the season for the Pirates. \u00a0In this edition, the Pirates brought the top-selling R&B group in music history Boyz II Men to PNC Park to perform in front of a sellout crowd following their game with the Kansas City Royals. \u00a0With both teams sporting their throwback Negro League […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[1989,616,729,1097,1434,520,1988,377],"class_list":["post-11816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professional","tag-boyz-ii-men","tag-clint-hurdle","tag-joel-hanrahan","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-matt-hague","tag-mlb","tag-negro-league","tag-pittsburgh-pirates"],"yoast_head":"\n