For four innings, Mitch Keller was pitching to perfection as the Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander required only 42 pitches to retire the first dozen batters he faced.
The Colorado Rockies countered with five consecutive hits to start the fifth, batting around the order in a six-run inning to pull away from the Pirates for a 10-4 win Wednesday night before 10,554 at PNC Park. The start of the game was delayed 26 minutes by a rainstorm.
Keller (4-2) followed a quality start in Arizona by allowing six runs on seven hits and one walk and striking out three in 5 2/3 innings. Led by Mickey Moniak, who went 3 for 5 with five RBIs on a double, triple and three-run homer, the Rockies racked up 11 hits and went 5 for 11 with runners in scoring position.
“It’s tough,” Keller said. “I’ve just got to try to stop the bleeding as fast as possible — and I didn’t do that. That’s the result: a six spot. It just kind of took us out of the game. That loss is on me. Everyone else played really well. I played well until that inning. Just a disaster inning.”
The Pirates scored two runs on a wild play in the second inning, after Rockies lefty Jose Quintana loaded the bases by giving up a double to Ryan O’Hearn and walking Nick Gonzales and Brandon Lowe. With two outs, Henry Davis hit a sharp grounder to third baseman Kyle Karros, who threw to second base for an attempted forceout.
Lowe beat the throw to the bag and didn’t break stride on his way to third base. O’Hearn scored, but Gonzales was forced to vacate the base and was caught in a rundown between third and home plate when second baseman Edouard Julien threw home to catcher Brett Sullivan, who threw it back to Karros at third.
But Quintana stood in the baseline, blocking Gonzales’ path to the plate, and was called for obstruction by home plate umpire Ramon De Jesus. Gonzales scored to give the Pirates a 2-0 advantage.
“Brandon Lowe running through second base like that, then Nick Gonzales getting in the rundown and getting the obstruction call,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said, “I thought they did a really, really good job there.”
The Pirates padded their lead in the third when Konnor Griffin — batting in the two-hole for the first time in the majors — turned a bloop single inside the right-field line into a double, then scored on a single to right by Reynolds to make it 3-0.
Keller’s fifth-inning self-destruction allowed the Rockies to tie the score before he surrendered Moniak’s home run.
TJ Rumfield started with a single to right, Troy Johnston followed with a single to left and Karros hit a line drive to left to score Rumfield. Jake McCarthy doubled to left to drive in Johnston, and Ezequiel Tovar singled to score Karros to tie the score 3-3.
First baseman Jared Triolo fielded a grounder by Brett Sullivan and threw to Davis, who tagged a sliding McCarthy out at home. The Rockies challenged the call, claiming Davis blocked the plate, but it was upheld upon review. After getting Julien to line out to short, Keller served a 2-2 sweeper that Moniak hit 372 feet to right field for his 12th homer to give the Rockies a 6-3 lead.
“It was fast,” Kelly said. “Mitch was (throwing) a no-hitter going into that, maybe perfect, really throwing the ball well.”
O’Hearn hit a solo shot to start the bottom of the sixth, sending Antonio Senzatela’s first-pitch fastball 392 feet to right-center for his sixth homer to cut it to 6-4.
Reliever Brandan Bidois made his major-league debut in the eighth, becoming the first Australian to play for the Pirates and the 40th in MLB history. The 24-year-old right-hander from Brisbane gave up a leadoff double to Moniak, who advanced to third on Freeman’s sacrifice bunt. But Moniak was picked off by Davis, a call that was upheld after review.
When Bidois left a full-count fastball over the middle of the plate, Rumfield hammered it 415 feet to right field for his sixth homer to give the Rockies a 7-4 lead.
Justin Lawrence fared even worse, allowing three runs in the ninth. After giving up a single to Brenton Doyle and walking Tovar, Lawrence made an errant throw to second that allowed Doyle to score. Moniak tripled past a diving O’Hearn in right to drive in two more runs as the Rockies extended their lead to 10-4.
“The thing that stinks is the ground ball back to him,” Kelly said. “I thought they squared a couple balls up, but to get that potential double-play ball and unfortunately just didn’t complete the play, that spiraled out from there. If we’re able to convert that double play, probably a different inning.”