The San Francisco Giants defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates 5-4 last night. After being limited to one hit by the Giants Johnny Cueto through the first five innings, the Bucs scored four runs in the eighth inning to make the game close. Josh Bell hit his 37th home run of the year. Pirates rookie starter Mitch Keller allowed all five of the Giants runs over five innings. He gave up nine hits, did not walk a batter and struck out seven.
The loss was the Bucs 82nd of the season.
The two teams play again tonight at 9:45pm. WISR pre-game is 9:20pm.
Pirate rookies Bryan Reynolds and Kevin Newman was the first rookie teammates in 44 years to both have averages over the .300 mark. The last rookie duo to do that were Boston’s Fred Lynn (.331) and Jim Rice (.309). Only four other players have done that. (Al Dark and Billy Goodwin with Boston in 1948. Dale Alexander and Roy Johnson with Detroit in 1929.
Reynolds had two hits last night and is currently batting .330 – five points behind Washington’s Anthony Rendon. Newman is batting .313 after having a hit in two at-bats last night.
The Pirates have lost reliever Kyle Crick to a finger injury, suffered when he got into a clubhouse altercation with closer Felipe Vazquez Monday. It Is the second time this season Crick has had an incident with a member of the Pirates team. Earlier this summer he had an incident with the Pirates bullpen coach.
Christian Yelich of the Milwaukee Brewers suffered a broken knee cap last night in their game against Miami. Yelich fouled a ball off his knee in the first inning, and will be lost for the season. He is the reigning National League Most Valuable Player, and was batting .329 with 44 home runs, 97 RBI’s and had 30 stolen bases.