PITTSBURGH — Ke’Bryan Hayes had never done what he did Friday against the Washington Nationals.
The Pirates had manufactured some base runners ahead of him in the ninth inning, trailing by one run. Left fielder Anthony Alford singled to lead off the inning, then right fielder Ben Gamel walked. Both advanced into scoring position on a wild pitch, with shortstop Cole Tucker, pinch-hitter Colin Moran and Hayes, the rookie third baseman, due up.
Tucker popped out and Moran grounded out to score the first run of the inning.
Then Hayes stepped in. He worked a 2-1 count, got a fastball on the outside part of the plate, and ground a ball just inside first base and trickling into right field. Gamel came in to score, while Hayes trotted down to first, his teammates streaming out of the dugout as they won, 4-3. It was Hayes’ first career walk-off, and he actually said it was the first he could remember having since high school.
The game-winning hit trickled by Nationals first baseman Josh Bell who returned to PNC Park for the first time since being traded from the Pirates to the Washington Nationals this offseason. Bell had already made his mark on the game.
He stepped up to the plate in the top of the first inning to face his former teammate, left-hander Steven Brault. The Pirates crowd gave their old All-Star a round of applause, he doffed his cap, then promptly took a walk from Brault.
Two at-bats later, Bell really did damage. Facing Pirates lefty Sam Howard, Bell launched a ball deep into left-center. It bounced directly on top of the wall at the tip of the notch in left and careened into the bullpen for a solo homer. It is Bell’s 37th career home run at PNC Park, but his first against the Pirates.
Perhaps most notable in the long run from this game was Brault’s outing. He pitched two innings, allowed two hits and two earned runs, throwing 42 pitches in the process. That was it. Brault departed the game with left arm discomfort, another tough blow in what has been a brutal season for the 29-year-old lefty.
This was just Brault’s seventh start of the season. He suffered a lat strain in his throwing shoulder during spring training back in March. He spent most of this season in Bradenton, Fla., at the Pirates’ spring training site, just working his way back to full health slowly but surely. He did not make his season debut with the Pirates until Aug. 4 in Milwaukee. He pitched four innings, allowing three hits and one earned run that day.
Things were worse recently. In his last two starts leading into Friday, he allowed 12 earned runs on 15 hits over seven innings of work, good for a 15.43 ERA.
It’s currently unknown exactly how serious this injury is, but if it is the end of his season, he will finish with 5.86 ERA with 12 walks and 19 strikeouts over 27 2/3 innings. That would be the fewest innings he has thrown in a major league season in his career, which dates back to his call-up in 2016.
Really, the Pirates did about as well as could be expected piecing together the rest of the game after Brault departed. Right-hander Cody Ponce relieved him in the third and pitched three hitless, shutout innings. Lefty Sam Howard gave up the homer to Bell, but was otherwise untouched over two frames, and right-handers Nick Mears and Chad Kuhl finished off the game with scoreless efforts in the eighth and ninth, respectively.
That was enough to hold the Nationals at bay long enough for the offense to get something going. Bell’s homer made it a two-run game, with Alford hammering his fifth homer of the season into the right-field seats to cut it to one in the seventh.
That set the stage for the rally and subsequent Hayes walk-off, putting a positive exclamation point on what originally looked like a defeating loss.
