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33 minutes ago
They needed that.
Yeah. It's early in the season. And yes, what purist of Pittsburgh baseball does not like consecutive wins 2-0?
That's what Jordan Lyles and Joe Musgrove offered the Pirates Thursday and Friday against good performances. Twelve combined launcher heats at the start, no points allowed.
But it was good to see the Pirates win a few games in the same way as Saturday and Sunday to complete their four-game Reds sweep at PNC Park this weekend.
As we reported at Breakfast at Benz last week, the first games of the Pirates season embody all the preconceptions of baseball world on these Pirates of 2019.
All start to launch, not much else.
During the first few games this season, the Bucs relied on their starters to hide a fragile defense, irregular relief work and silent bats.
But those last two wins over Cincinnati – by scores of 6-5 and 7-5 – were slightly different.
Trevor Williams, the usual powerhouse, had four runs in six innings, giving him an almost perfect form dating back to the all-star break last summer. And he finished in sixth place trailing 4-3 before the Pirates win.
The Pirates still had their problems, apart from the fact that Williams was not as keen as usual. Keone Kela allowed the Reds to tie the match in the eighth end with a circuit-going. Colin Moran made another mistake on the third goal.
But that was the only mistake of the game, and the Joey Votto circuit made him the only Reds hitter to reach the goal against the Pirates counter in four innings that day.
In addition, it is worth being optimistic after 12 hits and six points to come back twice in a match that lasted 10 innings. The batters have not been productive, especially with the runners in goal position.
The club had been 4 out of 48 with riders in position to score through their first four homes.
By adding to that on Sunday, the Pirates scored seven points on a dozen hits to support Chris Archer, who was decent but not dominant – six innings, three earned runs, seven free kicks and two goals.
As the teams retreated again, with Archer and Eric Gonzalez committing errors, the offensive won the day with three doubles, one triple and two homers.
One of them was Josh Bell's impressive explosion of 474 above the batter's eye in the center of the field.
More than.
The.
Batters eye.
?#Ringit pic.twitter.com/FuduGRizXD– Pirates (@Pirates) April 7, 2019
It was a consecutive victory on the days when the starting pitch faltered in relation to the high beam he had set.
This is a consecutive win after the runners have corrected to the average, where the bats remained constant, even if the face-off took place and the corrector was still not present.
Progress.
Director Clint Hurdle must be happy to know that his team has this arrow in his quiver.
"You get an offense. You get bullets in the air. You get out of the stadium, Hurdle said. "Everything is on the bridge. It was an opportunity today to finish (the series) in style. (The Reds) took the lead and we continued to fight. I like the way our team plays. "
Richard Rodriguez was even entitled to a Sunday backup, his first as a major player. Kela and Felipe Vazquez were deported for their roles in an incident that occurred at the beginning of the drying out of the benches.
It was the first round of Rodriguez without allowing a base runner to score four times this year.
"I'm really happy, especially after the first two outings, to give up home runs," said Hurdle. "He remained steadfast. He pulled his belt one step closer. It's a big stop for him. "
And it was for the team that now has to go on the road for eight games. But they do it at 5-3, Milwaukee being the only other central team in the NL over .500 at the start of the third week of the season.
Depending on how things look to start the year, the Pirates should be very happy.
Tim Benz is an editor of Tribune-Review. You can contact Tim at [email protected] or via Twitter. All tweets could be republished. All emails are subject to publication unless otherwise noted.
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