Gerrit Cole experienced a slow start and the offense stalled in a Brewers 4 – 0 blanking of the Pirates on Thursday night.
The Brewers scored single runs in the first, second, fourth and eighth innings off of starter, Gerrit Cole, who went 7 1/3 innings. Jean Segura started things off in the first after reaching by way of a single, taking third on a Gerrit Cole throwing error and scoring on a Jonathan Lucroy single.
Carlos Gomez scored in the second after singling, stealing second and scoring on a Khris Davis RBI double. “I was proud of the resiliency because he was kinda being pushed to a corner,” said manager, Clint Hurdle. “He was not sharp early. He has a tendency that he can get fired up and go. The first two innings, I don’t think he was in the rhythm that he wanted to be in. I think the third and fourth innings he improved and the 5th, 6th and 7th innings were the best he’s thrown for us all year.”
Aramis Ramirez would homer in the fourth and Scooter Gennett, who went 3-for-4 in the game, scored on a sac fly in the eighth to end the scoring for the Brewers. “There’s a good handful of pitches that fell in for hits and there was a handful sprinkled in that weren’t pretty good and I felt like they capitalized, but we played really good defense and turned a lot of double plays (4 in total) on those ground balls to keep them from putting up crooked numbers, so I’m glad they were able to be there and minimize as much as they could.”
The Pirates were unable to do anything against Brewers starter, Yovani Gallardo as they only had one man reach third the entire game, an Andrew McCutchen triple that fell just underneath the glove of center fielder, Carlos Gomez. It appeared that Cutch could have had a shot at the inside-the-park homer, but he thought the ball was caught at first and jogged the first ten feet out of the box.
One of the few bright spots that came from the contest was the play of John Buck, who made his Pirates debut. He went 3-for-3 with three singles. “Getting your first hit out of the way relieves the excitement and helps get into a flow. It gets the monkey off of my back.”
The offense would only amount to two hits over the final five innings, a Buck single in the seventh and a Cutch walk in the ninth, but both would be erased on double plays.
Brandon Kintzler would come in and work two no-hit innings to close things out.
Final Score: Brewers 4, Pirates 0
Starters Lines
Cole (L, 6 – 7): 7 1/3 IN, 10 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 4 K’s, 1 HR. 97 Pitches (62 Strikes)
Gallardo(W, 10 – 9): 7 IN, 6 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 4 K’s. 93 Pitches (56 Strikes)
The Bucs will begin yet another pivotal 3-game series against the Cardinals tomorrow night. First pitch is 7:05.
Tomorrow’s Starters
(LHP) Francisco Liriano (PIT): 14 – 6, 2.74 ERA
(RHP) Shelby Miller (STL): 12 – 8, 2.90 ERA
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(Photo Credit: Keith Srakocic )
