The Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the Washington Nationals 8-7 Wednesday afternoon to avoid a series sweep. Outfielder Bryan Reynolds continued his hot hitting in the month of June with three home runs. He drove in a career-high six runs. Yerry De Los Santos earned his first career save with a perfect ninth inning.
Reynolds’ effort is the second time in 10 days that a Pirate has had a three-home run game. Jack Suwinski hit three on June 19th. Reynolds now has 13 home runs this season. Daniel Vogelbach hit his 10th home run of the year.
Pirates starting pitcher Mitch Keller allowed five earned runs on nine hits in his four innings.
The Nationals were stuck having to get four outs in the fifth inning of the game thanks to manager Derek Shelton knowing the deep parts of the major league rulebook, and it resulted in a key run in a one-run decision.
With Pirate runners on second and third with one out, third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes hit a liner to former Pirate first baseman Josh Bell who caught it and threw to third base. Jack Suwinski ran home and Hoy Park was tagged out before Washington’s third baseman touched the bag. The inning ended with the Park out, but it also triggered MLB rule 509-c-4 which requires a team to get a fourth out via appeal before leaving the field. The umpiring crew determined the Nationals failed to do that, and Suwinski’s run counted, despite the fact he did not “tag up”.
The Pirates open a six-game home-stand tonight with the first of four games with the Milwaukee Brewers. First pitch is 7:05pm. Pre-game on WISR begins at 6:40pm.
The Brewers enter tonight’s game tied with the St. Louis Cardinals atop the National League Central Division.