It’s only the Marlins, but JA Happ’s Pirate resurgence continued tonight with six shutout innings, scattering four hits, striking out six, and issuing just one walk. Happ actually gave up half of those hits in the first inning, and he only allowed one base runner after the third. Happ’s now only allowed one run in his last three starts (17 1/3 innings), striking out 16, walking four, and only allowing 13 hits. It’s hard to believe that even Neal Huntington or the biggest Ray Searage believer in the world thought that Happ would look this good this early in his Pirate career.
Gregory Polanco had four hits, drove in a run and scoring one. All five plate appearances resulted in absolutely scorched baseballs. The Pirates took a 2-0 lead in the third inning when Polanco and Starling Marte both singled with two outs, and then Andrew McCutchen launched an opposite field double off of the right field wall to score both of them. The Pirates drew a ton of walks tonight, working Tom Koehler for four in his six innings, and then taking four more from Bryan Morris in the top of the ninth.
This win brought the Pirates a few milestones. Mark Melancon picked up his 40th save, which makes him the first Pirate closer to do so since Joel Hanrahan back in 2011. He’s within striking distance of Mike Williams’ franchise record of 46 saves. I don’t really care about saves and I think it’s a bad stat, but it would be nice if the franchise record was held by one of the best relievers in Pirate history. With the win, the Pirates are now 27 games over .500, which is the furthest above .500 that the Pirates have been since 1992. The Cubs won again today. The Cardinals are tied with the Diamondbacks right now, but seem like they’re about to take a lead. Just another day in the life of the NL Central, I guess.
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