Hello,
Pittsburgh beat the Giants 12-8 in PNC Park. Pittsburgh improves to 39-26 on the night where they set season highs for hits and runs. For the Pirates pitcher Franklin Liriano really struggled, he gave up 8 hits and 4 runs in 6 innings. (It's a good thing Liriano pitches for the Pirates. If he gave up 4 runs for the Dodgers, the chances of him winning wouldn't be very good.) Liriano earned the win and improves to 5-2 on the season. He also has a fantastic 2.36 ERA. Pirates closer Jason Grilli hadn't pitched for a few days, he pitched the 9th inning in a non-save situation. He pitched to stay sharp and in doing so he shut down the Giants in 12 pitches. Grilli now has an ERA of .94 and has 23 saves on the season. Even more importantly he has 0 blown saves.
The offensive stars were many, but here are a few of them. Leadoff hitter Starling Marte was 4-5, also scored 4 runs and he's hitting .289 this season. Andrew McCutchen was 3-5, had 3 RBIs and scored 2 runs. McCutchen is hitting .297 this season. Neil Walker was 2-4, hit his 5th homer of the season and had 3 RBIs. Walker has been struggling a bit from the plate this season, he's hitting .257.
With St. Louis losing tonight, both Cincinnati and Pittsburgh inched closer to first place in the NL Central. St. Louis (42-23, 97.3 Poff%) remains in first place and leads second place Cincinnati (40-26, 81.7 Poff%) by 2.5 games. In third place are the Pirates, although they have only won half of their last 10 games. Pittsburgh (39-26, 54.4Poff%) trails the Cardinals by 3 games.
Pittsburgh can continue improving their chances of making the playoffs. They have one more game with the Giants, Pittsburgh has won the first two game of the series. The Pirates then have 3 days off, in other words the offensively anemic Dodgers are coming to town. On Sunday, Gerrit Cole will be making his second start, he's going up against the excellent Clayton Kershaw. Following that getaway game, Pittsburgh flies to Cincy for a 4 game series against the Reds. That series should say a lot about who will be the team most likely to challenge the Cards for the NL Central title.
Meanwhile in Tampa Bay, the Red Sox gutted out a 2-1 victory over Tampa Bay. Boston is now 41-26 and has a 85.7% chance of making the playoffs. Boston will lead the Yankees by 3 games if NewYork loses to the As. Daniel Nava had the big blow for the Red Sox, he hit his 9th home run of the year and drove in both Red Sox runs. Andrew Bailey earned his 7th save of the season, his ERA is 2.21.
I cheer for both the Red Sox and the Orioles as part of the 6 teams I cheer for. One bad thing about cheering for so many teams is that they eventually play each other. Boston and Baltimore start a 4 game series in Baltimore tomorrow.
themusicaddict
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