The Pittsburgh Pirates started their West Coast swing with a visit to the lost and found.
They found their offense with a season-best 18 hits against the Los Angeles Angels but might have lost a starting pitcher in the process.
The homecoming for Pirates lefty Bailey Falter’s – a native of Chino Hills, Calif. – was short-lived when he was removed after four innings with low back tightness.
The Pirates had six players with multiple hits to snap a three-game losing streak with a 9-3 win Tuesday night at Angels Stadium in Anaheim, Calif.
The Pirates (9-15) topped their previous season-high of 14 hits in a 10-3 win over the Washington Nationals on April 14 at PNC Park. Bryan Reynolds, Tommy Pham and Isiah Kiner-Falefa had three hits apiece, and Oneil Cruz, Andrew McCutchen and Joey Bart had two each as the Pirates went 7 for 17 with runners in scoring position.
“It was huge, especially the first day on the West Coast,” Pirates shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa said in an on-field interview with SportsNet Pittsburgh. “These games are always hard with the time change. To score early right there and keep rolling – and Bailey did a great job, as well – so it was a good all-around win.”
It marked the third three-hit game for Reynolds in his past four, as the All-Star right fielder has gone 10 for 19 with four RBIs and four runs over the past four games to raise his batting average from .197 to .263.
Falter allowed three runs on five hits without a walk while striking out five over four innings, but the bullpen kept the Angels scoreless over the final five innings. Chase Shugart (1-0) relieved Falter and had three strikeouts in a pair of perfect innings to earn his first major league win.
“They’ve been carrying us all year, so it was nice for us to do something,” Kiner-Falefa said. “We’re going to build off this momentum. Hopefully, we’re going to keep playing better baseball. It’s a long season. Our pitching staff has done great. We’ve got to do a better job of putting up runs for them.”
Angels starter Jose Soriano got out of a bases-loaded jam in the second inning by getting Cruz to ground out to second base. But the Pirates took a 2-0 lead in the third inning on back-to-back RBI singles by Bart and Ke’Bryan Hayes. With the bases loaded again, Soriano got Pham to ground into a 6-4-3 double play.
Pham saved a run in the second when he chased down a line drive by Jo Adell in left with Nolan Schanuel at first base. Taylor Ward cut the Angels’ deficit in half in the third. When Falter left a 1-0 sinker over the middle, Ward sent it 403 feet to left field for his sixth home run.
Cruz and Reynolds hit successive singles to right field with one out in the fourth, and McCutchen followed by smacking a 2-2 sinker 417 feet to left-center for a three-run home run and 5-1 Pirates lead.
“A big moment right there,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “We’re at 2-1. To go to 5-1 and give us some breathing room, it was a big swing by Cutch.”
That was it for Soriano, who allowed five runs on eight hits and four walks with two strikeouts in 3⅓ innings.
The Angels answered in the bottom of the fourth. Jorge Soler doubled to right-center, advanced to third on a single by Logan O’Hoppe and scored on Schanuel’s sacrifice fly to center to make it 5-2. Jo Adell drilled a double down the third base line that ricocheted in the corner, scoring O’Hoppe from first to cut the Pirates’ lead to 5-3.
But Frazier drew his second walk, then raced to third and beat Mike Trout’s throw on Pham’s bloop single to right. Angels third baseman Kevin Newman fired directly to second base to get Pham out, but Kiner-Falefa hit a comebacker off the glove of lefty Garrett McDaniels for an infield RBI single that scored Frazier for a 6-3 lead.
Frazier led off the seventh by hitting a fly ball to right-center that dropped when Adell and Trout collided, allowing Frazier to reach second. Kiner-Falefa reached on another infield grounder, this one overturned after a review, but Michael Darrell-Hicks got a pair of strikeouts to prevent any runs from scoring.
When Ward and Trout drew walks against Justin Lawrence in the eighth, Shelton wasn’t taking any chances. He turned to Dennis Santana, who struck out Soler on three sliders.
The Pirates padded their lead to 7-3 in the ninth, when Frazier drew his third walk, advanced to second on Pham’s single and scored on a ground-rule double down the left field line by Kiner-Falefa. Reynolds hit a two-run single to right for a 9-3 lead. Lefty Ryan Borucki got the final three outs, with Pham making a catch against the wall to rob Adell of a home run to end the game.
Featured Local Businesses
“We had some really good swings, we got some breaks, we had some balls kick off, some balls squirt through,” Shelton said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “Overall, I was very pleased with a really complete game for us. It was a total offensive team effort. Everybody did something that contributed to us winning that game.”