The Pittsburgh Pirates were eyeing a sweep of one of baseball’s best teams Thursday night at PNC Park, with Bailey Falter hoping to follow the solid performances of Jared Jones and Paul Skenes against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Unfortunately for the Pirates, those hopes took a big dent early, as the Dodgers scored four first-inning runs, and after chasing Falter, five more against reliever Ben Heller in an 11-7 win.
Falter (3-3, 3.69 ERA) took the loss, lasting four innings and allowing five runs on eight hits, striking out six with a pair of walks.
Heller, making his Pirates debut, had about as disastrous a performance as possible after taking over for Falter with no outs in the fifth.
The Pirates (29-33) managed 14 hits, including homers from Nick Gonzales and Oneil Cruz, but it wasn’t enough.
In the top of the first, Falter ran into trouble immediately.
Mookie Betts led off with a single, with Shohei Ohtani doing the same.
Then, Freddie Freeman came to the plate and jacked the first pitch he saw from Falter over the Clemente Wall to give Los Angeles a 3-0 lead.
The next batter, Teoscar Hernandez, doubled and scored on an RBI single from Miguel Rojas to make it 4-0.
“It’s a great lineup. It’s a good team,” Falter said. “They win a lot of games. I just need to be a little bit better.”
The Pirates got one back in the second, with Jack Suwinski floating an RBI single into left field off Dodgers starter Walker Buehler that scored Edward Olivares from third base.
Olivares had reached base on a throwing error by Betts at shortstop.
In the third, Ke’Bryan Hayes and Cruz both singled and stole second base, with Hayes taking third on Cruz’s hit.
Olivares made the score 4-2 with a sharp sacrifice fly to right field, plating Hayes.
Gonzales then hit a tying two-run shot to left field, making it 4-4.
Falter managed to recover after a rough first inning, pitching clean second, third and fourth innings, but after he allowed a leadoff homer to Hernandez in the fifth, manager Derek Shelton yanked him.
“In the first inning of the game, he just missed too many balls down in the middle of the plate,” Shelton said. “… He did kind of bounce back and readjusted his sight. That’s a challenging lineup with all the right-handers.”
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Heller, whose contract was selected from Triple-A Indianapolis on Tuesday, took over with the Dodgers ahead 5-4.
But Heller was ineffective, allowing five runs before managing to limp out of the frame.
Heller plunked Andy Pages on the first pitch he threw before letting up a single to Rojas.
Enrique Hernandez then made the score 6-4 with an RBI double to right field.
The Dodgers took a 7-4 lead when Henry Davis made a throwing error while trying to gun down Miguel Vargas, who reached on a fielder’s choice and stole second.
Davis’ throw entered the outfield and allowed Enrique Hernandez to trot home.
Still with only one out, Austin Barnes hit an RBI single before Betts cleared the bases with a three-run homer to center field, putting Los Angeles ahead 10-4.
“Too many balls in the middle of the plate,” Shelton said of Heller. “ … We had that stretch of right-handers, which we thought he would match up well with. He just had a tough first outing.”
The Dodgers kept piling on in the sixth, scoring a run off the next Pirates reliever they faced, Kyle Nicolas.
He stayed on and pitched 2 1/3 innings before newly acquired lefty Justin Bruihl took over with an out in the eighth and retired two batters.
The Pirates showed a sign of life in the eighth, when Andrew McCutchen and Bryan Reynolds singled off Los Angeles’ Evan Phillips before Cruz’s homer. The ball traveled 462 feet, per Statcast, making it the longest homer of his career.
“It felt good,” Cruz said through Pirates assistant coach and translator Stephen Morales. “Been trying to hit the ball hard like I always do, and I was able to connect on that ball really good. It went really far.”
Hayes was 3 for 5 with a run scored, and Rowdy Tellez and Suwinski both went 2 for 4.
Cruz finished 2 for 5 with a pair of runs, and Gonzales had another multi-hit (2 for 5) game.
Justin Guerriero is a TribLive reporter covering the Penguins, Pirates and college sports. A Pittsburgh native, he is a Central Catholic and University of Colorado graduate. He joined the Trib in 2022 after covering the Colorado Buffaloes for Rivals and freelancing for the Denver Post. He can be reached at jguerriero@triblive.com.