PITTSBURGH _ There are reasons the Los Angeles Dodgers are 53 games above .500 and reasons the Pirates are five games below. One of them circled the bases in the seventh inning Monday, and another in the 12th. The recently acquired Curtis Granderson smashed a game-changing grand slam off Gerrit Cole, and the rejuvenated Yasiel Puig struck a go-ahead homer in extras.
Puig's pop on a slider from rookie reliever Dovydas Neverauskas delivered the Dodgers a 6-5 win in a seesaw series opener at PNC Park, a game in which the Pirates jumped ahead with three homers off left-hander Alex Wood then saw their lead vanish when Granderson made Cole pay for a mistake slider and made manager Clint Hurdle pay for allowing Cole to throw it.
The Dodgers improved to 88-35. The Pirates are 61-64, seven games from first place.
Down two after Granderson's slam, the Pirates started an eighth-inning rally against left-hander Tony Watson, traded by the Pirates three weeks, and finished it against right-hander Pedro Baez. After Watson hit a batter and struck out the next, Josh Harrison struck an RBI double off Baez. Andrew McCutchen and David Freese walked, loading the bases.
Josh Bell pinch-hit for Jose Osuna, who had homered earlier, and bounced a grounder to second base. He avoided a double play and settled for a run-scoring, tying fielder's choice.
Cole was charged with five runs in 6 1/3 innings, allowing eight hits and two walks. He struck out seven and was mostly in command until the seventh. At that point, he was blanking the Dodgers, but there had been turbulence. He wiggled free from bases-loaded jams in the second and sixth innings, escaping of the latter when Adrian Gonzalez hit a fly ball which settled into McCutchen's mitt at the base of the center-field wall, short of a grand slam.
In the seventh, Granderson, acquired in a waiver trade last week, made Cole pay for a mistake slider and made manager Clint Hurdle pay for allowing Cole to throw it.
After Chase Utley smacked a leadoff single in the seventh inning, pitching coach Ray Searage visited the mound. His words were not the fix. Pinch-hitter Logan Forsythe walked, and a fielder's choice put runners at the corners. Corey Seager ripped an RBI single to right field. Justin Turner bounced a base hit to left field, again filling the bases. Cole was at 108 pitches.
The third bases-loaded bind was one Cole, who clearly was laboring, did not solve. Why was he asked to? Unclear. What is clear, however, is the Pirates have a hole in their bullpen.
Granderson, a lefty swinger, has a .858 OPS against right-handers and .698 OPS against lefties in his career. The Pirates have only one lefty in their bullpen, closer Felipe Rivero, who Hurdle avoids using prior to the eighth or ninth innings. They started the season with four lefties _ Rivero, Watson (traded), Wade LeBlanc (DL) and Antonio Bastardo (DFA).
Reliever A.J. Schugel was warming when Granderson dug into the batter's box. Hurdle had determined this was Cole's hitter to face _ perhaps his last, regardless of the result. After a first-pitch curveball for a strike, Cole missed with two breaking balls. The next delivery, a slider, landed on the concourse beyond the bleachers in right-center field, a go-ahead grand slam.
The Pirates were working with a short bullpen. Neverauskas and Felipe Rivero had pitched the previous two days. George Kontos tweaked his groin Sunday. Kontos went through a regular pregame routine Monday and reported feeling well, but the Pirates proceeded with caution.
Reliever Joaquin Benoit worked the 10th and 11th, turning in a pair of scoreless and hitless innings despite walking four. He threw 38 pitches, his most in an outing since April 8, 2012. Jameson Taillon, the starter Tuesday, went to the bullpen prior to the 11th inning and began to warm when Neverauskas finally entered the game for the 12th inning.
Perhaps something was in the air Monday night, hours after a solar eclipse partially shaded a sun-soaked day in Pittsburgh. The previous total solar eclipse seen from coast to coast in the United States occurred June 8, 1918. That day _ as noted by Dodgers historian Mark Langill _ the Pirates and Brooklyn Robins, the Dodgers' predecessors, dueled at Ebbets Field.
Wood arrived at PNC Park averaging 0.56 home runs allowed per nine innings, the third-lowest rate among starting pitchers with at least 100 innings this season. Wood had allowed only seven home runs this season _ two before the All-Star break, and five after it. He only one multiple-home run outing this season (July 21) and one three-homer game ever (May 4, 2016).
The Pirates dented him early and in speedy succession. Osuna uncorked a Wood fastball to the base of the left-field rotunda leading off the second inning, the rookie's seventh home run this season, and Sean Rodriguez followed with a solo shot above the Clemente Wall. They were the Pirates' fourth back-to-back jacks this year, and the first in Wood's 97 career starts.
Prior to Monday, Wood had thrown 414 changeups this season, according to Statcast. Of those, 75 drew whiffs and only 16 were struck for base hits. None, however, had been homers. That changed when Rodriguez whacked a changeup in the second, and changed again when Josh Harrison drove a changeup into the seats in right-center field for a third-inning homer.
The lead survived for a time, but it did not suffice.
