The Pirates woke up from their brief slumber and overcame a rocky outing by starter Vance Worley to beat the Phillies 6-3 last night. Worley had trouble hitting his spots, to put it mildly, allowing a two-out, two-run single to his counterpart Jerome Williams in the bottom of the 4th, the type of hit that can break a team’s spirit. The Pirates rallied in the top of the 5th behind an inside-the-park home run by Andrew McCutchen, and a conventional one – a blast, by the way – by Russell Martin. Leading 4-3 heading into the bottom of the inning, Pirate fans could not have been too confident, given that Worley looked like toast, leaving a lot of innings to fill in for a victory.
The Vanimal recovered, however, recording three straight groundball outs. Luis Garcia came on to pitch the 6th for the Phillies, and the Pirates greeted him with four consecutive hits by Jordy Mercer, Andrew Lambo, Josh Harrison and Starling Marte to plate two more runs. The breathing room was a nice luxury, as Clint Hurdle went to recently added lefthander Bobby LaFramboise, who threw a clean inning with two strikeouts. He has a funky sidearm delivery; clearly the Phillies could not pick up the ball as they were swinging at pitches everywhere. John Holdzkom came on to dominate the 7th, and the Pirates were suddenly up three runs with their big guns in the bullpen ready to go.
Tony Watson has been having some troubles of late, but he set down the Phillies in order in the 8th. Mark Melancon had excellent stuff and sharp command, recording the easy save. This was a very nice bounce back effort for the Pirates, who looked listless the night before. Starling Marte has never looked as dangerous at the plate as he has this week.
