It took a little while, but this game finally ended up where it looked like it was heading for the entire evening. The Pirates mostly scorched balls off of Sean O’Sullivan in the early going, but had pretty much nothing to show for it until Josh Harrison’s three-run fourth inning homer. AJ Burnett mowed through the underpowered Phillie lineup, until hitting a rough spot in the sixth that cut the Pirate lead to 3-2. The Pirate bats finally came through against the Phillies’ bullpen in the eighth; Josh Harrison and Francisco Cervelli started the inning with walks and both scored on a Gregory Polanco single, then Polanco scored on a vintage Andrew McCutchen home run to left center to put the game away. McCutchen now has nine hits in his last six games, including five extra base hits. I’m not sure his swing is 100% back, but he’s looked much more like himself in the past week than at any other point this season. Certainly the offense has started to come around with him; the Pirates have scored 34 runs in those six games and won five of them.
Getting these two wins against Quadruple-A starters to open this series is a really nice thing for the Pirates; they’ll face somewhat stiffer competition in this series final two games with Cole Hamels and Aaron Harang on the mound. With these two wins in the bank, though, the Pirates only need to split the final two to come out of the series above .500 on the year.
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