With a triumphant effort, your Pittsburgh Pirates swept the rival Milwaukee Brewers over the weekend. Featuring plenty of highlights, three absolutely packed games, and a heroic performance by The Magician, this could go down as the best series all year for the Bucs and could mark the moment the team turned a corner.
Game one should have taken place on Friday. However, a thunderstorm and heavy rain delayed the start for hours, and controversially, the game was postponed until Saturday (even though the postgame fireworks were still set off on the 10th). That being said, it might have been worth the wait.
The Bucs got out to a quick start, as Esmerlyn Valdez singled in Jake Mangum, and Joey Ortiz committed an uncharacteristic error that allowed Nick Gonzales to score, giving the Pirates a 2-0 lead off young starter Brandon Sproat. Unfortunately, Jake Bauers immediately responded with a two-run homer off newly minted All-Star Braxton Ashcraft to knot the game in the top of the second.
Things remained quiet until the bottom of the third, where Valdez continued his torrid start to his rookie campaign and smacked his eighth homer of the year to center field. Get ready to see Valdez's name nonstop throughout this recap, by the way.
The next few innings were rough for Ashcraft and the Bucs. The Brewers pushed the lead to 6-3 off Ashcraft and Carmen Mlodzinski going into the bottom of the seventh inning, and it looked like it was going to be a tough one for Pittsburgh.
However, as they have done so many times this year, the Buccos rallied. Henry Davis singled to knock Chad Patrick out of the game. Jake Mangum singled. Brandon Lowe singled. Suddenly, the bases were loaded for Bryan Reynolds. Unfortunately, Aaron Ashby got him to strike out.
Up stepped Esmerlyn Valdez, the perfect man to have at the plate. After running the count to 3-1, Valdez muscled a grand slam to right field to give the Bucs the lead back with one swing.
Carmen Mlodzinski tossed a perfect top of the eighth, and after a quiet half-inning from the offense, Gregory Soto entered for the save. It was far from clean. A Jared Triolo error left the bases loaded for Andrew Vaughn with just one out. However, Soto got Vaughn to pound a ground ball to third baseman Nick Gonzales, who stepped on the bag and rifled it home to catch a jogging Christian Yelich for the game-ending double play. It was unconventional, as it always seems to be for the Pirates, but the Bucs went into the second game of the doubleheader up one game in the series.
Game two, while technically worth the same as any other game this season, was supremely important. If the Bucs won, they would clinch a winning record going into the All-Star break for the first time since 2016. That's right, it's been nearly a decade.
The guys showed up to play. Bubba Chandler worked around a good amount of traffic, and while he didn't make it through five innings, he allowed just two runs. He outdueled Shane Drohan, who gave up three runs for the Crew, and you'll never guess how the Bucs got those runs.
That's right. Esmerlyn Valdez kept a fly ball fair down the left field line to score Bryan Reynolds in the fourth inning, giving him his third home run of the day. Bryan Reynolds then broke the 2-2 tie in the sixth with an RBI single that scored Brandon Lowe.The Pirates bullpen was flawless after Chandler, slamming the door on the Brewers to clinch that above-.500 record. Eisert, Ramirez, Santana, Mattson, and Montgomery were fantastic, each working a clean inning after Eisert escaped the fifth. Montgomery, in particular, looked electric, striking out both Jackson Chourio and William Contreras to set the Brewers down in the ninth.
Suddenly, game three felt like a bonus. It was the final Skenes Day—and final game in general—of the first half, and it felt like even if the Bucs came out flat, the series would still be a win.
And boy, was that an incorrect assessment. Skenes was dominant through 5.1 innings and 81 pitches. He gave up two runs, but considering he worked with a big lead the entire time, that line was more than good enough. He was supposed to square off against maybe the best pitcher in baseball, Jacob Misiorowski, but Miz was scratched before the game.
Taking his place was young lefty Robert Gasser, who was simply atrocious. The Bucs put up 14 runs on Gasser, Jared Koenig, and Grant Anderson, including a historic 10-run fourth inning. It was the first time since the 1990s that the Pirates had nine straight batters reach base to begin an inning, and it felt like it would never end. Some of the biggest moments included a Henry Davis two-run homer, a Marcell Ozuna homer, a Valdez RBI walk (shocker), a Nick Gonzales two-run double, and a Jake Mangum triple to cap the scoring.
Jared Triolo tallied three hits. O'Hearn reached base four times. While the bats went quiet after the nuclear fourth inning, it was far more than enough. Brice Turang hit a massive homer to cut the lead to 10 in the eighth, and Garrett Mitchell followed with an RBI double, but a 14-5 blowout was more than enough to cap off the first half of the season as the Pirates completed the sweep.
This was a series that put the league on notice, if they weren't already paying attention. It left the Pirates with the number one offense in baseball for the season, all while missing three of their most impactful bats.
On top of that, they now sit just two games out of the Wild Card and have the momentum to jump right into the mix. After hovering within a game of .500 for over a month, the Bucs now look to strike while the iron is hot and put themselves firmly in postseason position.
Series MVP is obvious. Esmerlyn Valdez. Congratulations. Three home runs. Eight RBI. A driving, dominant force.
The Pirates begin the second half of the season Friday in Cleveland against the Guardians, a team with a similar record but a much different play style. The starting pitching matchups haven't been announced yet, but whoever gets the ball will be ready against a Guardians lineup that won't send a single batter to the plate with an OPS over .800.
Let's Go Bucs!
