I guess when Gregory Polanco homered off of Clatyon Kershaw on the first pitch that Kershaw threw tonight, we all should’ve known it was going to be a strange came. Kershaw came into the game with a 37-inning scoreless streak and it was over before the ESPN crew for this game could even comment on it. Curt Schilling make a remark along the lines of, “You get all these notes here about the streak and we can’t even use any of them.”
Polanco’s now lead two games in a row off with homers, and he’s got three homers in the Pirates’ last 12 games after hitting three in the first 95. Polanco’s also racking up the hits off of lefties lately. It would’ve been unfathomable to see him leading off against Clayton Kershaw a few weeks ago, tonight he lead the game off with a homer and added a single off of Kershaw in his second at-bat. He looks a little more comfortable at the plate every day, and that should be a concern to pretty much any pitcher standing opposite him.
Of course, that was just one pitch. Kershaw never looked comfortable on the mound tonight; he bounced a few breaking balls, he threw six straight balls to Chris Stewart with the bases loaded (two were called strikes), and he gave up a ton of hits (nine). He only gave up four runs, but he was awfully lucky the Pirates didn’t cash in for more runs against him after loading the bases with no outs in the fourth (the Stewart walk was their only run). Gerrit Cole was a little better than Kershaw, but he battled his own control issues and wasn’t able to hold on to either lead that his pitching staff gave him, though, to be fair, it wasn’t his fault Mike Morse paid more attention to the umpire than Jimmy Rollins on the two-run infield single in the second.
Actually, the Dodgers scored a couple of weird runs in this game. After an Andrew McCutchen RBI double and an Aramis Ramirez RBI single flipped a 3-2 Dodger lead into a 4-3 Pirate lead in the bottom of the sixth, Carl Crawford reached base in the seventh after hitting Chris Stewart’s glove with his bat, stole second, and scored on a Jimmy Rollins double. A two-run infield single and a catcher’s interference run certainly created the feeling that maybe the Pirates were headed towards an incredibly frustrating loss.
That feeling was enhanced by bottom of the eighth inning. Jung Ho Kang and Francisco Cervelli lead off with singles, Sean Rodriguez drew a four-pitch walk, and then the Pirates promptly failed to score. Coupled with that fourth inning, the Pirates had loaded the bases with no out twice to that point and only scored once, on a walk. Tony Watson, Mark Melancon, and Antonio Bastardo held strong, though, and so the Pirates loaded up the bases again with no outs in the tenth, via Kang (a walk), Cervelli (a single), and Rodriguez (a perfectly placed sac bunt attempt that resulted in a single). This time, though, Pedro Alvarez pinch-hit for Bastardo and lasered a single down the right field line off of JP Howell to give the Pirates the walk-off win. A homer from a lefty off of Clayton Kershaw on the first pitch, a single from a lefty off of JP Howell on the last.
There were plenty of big nights for the Pirates on offense in this game: Andrew McCutchen had two hits (including that game-tying double in the sixith) and drew two walks. Jung Ho Kang had two hits and drew a walk that resulted in the winning run in the tenth — Kang running down the third base line wagging his finger as he pulled into home before sprinting off for the walk-off celebration was a great image. Aramis Ramirez had two hits, too, including the aforementioned go-ahead single in the sixth.
The image of the game for me, though, was Pedro Alvarez unable to keep a smile off of his face while doing his SportsCenter interview with shaving cream in his beard. For nine innings the Pirates out-played the Dodgers but seemed destined for a loss due to their inability to get a big hit with the bases loaded. Alvarez finally got them that hit, and so the Pirates open up this weekend series against the Dodgers with a win in a game started by baseball’s hottest pitcher. Despite all the weird circumstances and frustration, it’s hard not to be happy with that.
Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images
