CINCINNATI — Multiple times throughout Tuesday night’s 6-2 win over the Cincinnati Reds, the Pirates’ pitching staff was on the edge of disaster.
First it was right-hander Mitch Keller. He put runners on the corners in the second inning, loaded the bases in the fourth, and put runners on the corners again in the sixth.
He used a double play to wriggle out of that first jam, allowing one run in the process. He forced two shallow fly balls and a groundout to allow one run and no more in the fourth inning. In the sixth, he gave way to left-hander Anthony Banda out of the bullpen, who struck out TJ Friedl to put up a combined scoreless sixth inning.
So no, Keller was not flawless, but he worked out of his jams, and left the game with a one-run lead and his team in position to earn its first win at Great American Ball Park this season.
But with the Pirates’ bullpen, as it is currently constituted, the lead never feels completely safe. Right-hander Nick Mears came on in the seventh, loaded the bases on two walks and a single, then had to face the heart of the Reds’ order: Nick Castellanos, Joey Votto and Kyle Farmer. It looked like the kind of relief inning that would waste Keller’s effort.
Mears buckled down, jamming Castellanos and forcing him to pop out in foul territory. Votto was next, flying a weak pop-up into center field, too shallow to score a runner. Then Farmer, who entered this game hitting over .400 against the Pirates this season, was frozen by a curveball that bent into the zone for a called third strike. Mears shouted defiantly on his way off the mound, and the Pirates clung to their one-run lead at the time.
When all of those jams were developing, Pirates fans would be forgiven for feeling some sense of déjà vu. Keller has had his fair share of starts like Tuesday’s. The difference in many of those, though, is that he has struggled to stop any bleeding. On Tuesday, he gave up seven hits and issued four walks. That is troubling, in a sense, but the fact that he slipped out of those sticky situations with just two runs allowed is its own sign of success.
It did, however, extend what has been a fairly solid September for Keller. In four starts covering 21 2/3 innings this month, he now has a 3.32 ERA. In that same time frame, he has a high 1.57 WHIP, but avoiding real damage is a step in the right direction.
As far as Mears’ efforts, there are countless examples of the bullpen struggling to hold leads. Heck, Keller did this in his last outing, too, also against the Reds, on Sept. 15. He pitched five innings of two-run ball and left with the lead that game, but Chad Kuhl and Sam Howard blew that lead, and the Pirates lost. This time, though, everyone clung on tightly enough to win, with left-hander Chasen Shreve and right-hander Chris Stratton locking down the eighth and ninth innings, respectively.
Maybe Mears’ effort stirred some momentum in the Pirates’ dugout, as a Michael Perez single, a Hoy Park sac fly and Yoshi Tsutsugo double plated three more runs in the top of the eighth, staking the Pirates to a four-run lead and their 6-2 win.
As a matter of fact, Michael Perez, who is ostensibly the Pirates’ primary catcher with Jacob Stallings on the concussion list for now, provided unlikely contributions in his own right. He entered Tuesday’s game with two hits in his previous 51 at-bats. He went 0 for 2 to start the game, then bounced an infield single to short in the sixth inning and ripped a line drive single to right to score the first run of that eighth inning rally.
Really, Perez’s production fit right into the way this game went. Keller avoided the big hit. Mears denied perhaps the three best hitters in the Reds’ lineup and preserved the lead. That trio won’t always make up a winning formula, but for one night it did, and now the Pirates are off the schneid at Great American Ball Park.
