PITTSBURGH _ Tampa Bay Rays starter Chris Archer possesses one of the major league's best sliders. He can throw it up in the zone like a cutter, sweep it away from right-handers or drop it straight down, all at 91 mph.
Thursday, two Pirates lefties _ one on the upswing this month, one heading the opposite direction _ connected with that slider for a home run. John Jaso and Gregory Polanco's homers gave the Pirates a 4-0 victory at PNC Park.
Archer flipped a 2-1 slider over the outside corner to Jaso in the fourth inning. Jaso drove it into the seats in right-center field for his sixth home run of the season. He entered Thursday's game hitting .289 with a .372 on-base percentage in June.
If anyone on the Pirates had a feel for Archer's slider, it would be Jaso, who played with Archer on the Rays in 2015. Archer made the All-Star team that year and finished fifth in the AL Cy Young voting.
Polanco, on the other hand, carried a .188 average, .242 on-base percentage and .271 slugging percentage in the month into Thursday's game. He grounded out to second in his first at-bat. He grounded out to second in his second at-bat, taking his time to run down the line. His third time up he got ahead in the count 2-1, then swung and missed at a low slider.
Polanco watched a fastball for ball three, then fouled off two more sliders, one low, one high. The eighth pitch of the at-bat was just right: low in the zone, where Polanco's long arms can extend, and over the plate. His sixth home run of the season gave the Pirates a 3-0 lead.
Adam Frazier fouled off five pitches in a 10-pitch battle with Archer in the third inning. When he did put the ball in play, up the middle, Adeiny Hechavarria could only glove it. The next two batters, Josh Harrison and Andrew McCutchen, singled to give the Pirates a run.
Jameson Taillon completed 6 1/3 scoreless innings. He put a man on base in six of the first seven in which he pitched but navigated the traffic well. He stranded men on the corners in the first by freezing Tim Beckham with a full-count curveball, and a double play defused the second inning. Hard line drives went right at Frazier in the fourth and Jordy Mercer in the fifth.
Taillon had success with his curveball early; he forced Corey Dickerson into a weak tap-out in the first with a curve before the Beckham strikeout. The Rays started getting better reads on it the second time through the order, and Taillon adjusted; when he struck out Beckham for the second out of the sixth, he did so with a changeup.
Tony Watson relieved Taillon with two men on in the seventh, and retired Dickerson and Evan Longoria to preserve the lead.
