PITTSBURGH — At some point between the end of Game 1 and the start of Game 2, the spigot turned off. The Pirates, who racked up season-highs in runs (14) and hits (19) just hours earlier, struggled to replicate that success in the nightcap.
As a result, they split the split doubleheader by suffering a 6-0 loss to the Brewers in Game 2 at PNC Park on Saturday.
How strange was what happened in the second game? The Pirates hadn’t scored an earned run off of Brett Anderson, who started the first game, in 13 innings this season. Meanwhile, Game 2 starter Aaron Ashby had logged a grand total of 6 2/3 MLB innings prior to Saturday.
The Pirates rocked Anderson. Ashby dominated them. But like we learned in the first game, pretty much anything can happen in this sport, and sometimes that means a whole bunch of silence, which is what the Pirates endured.
The Pirates finished with just four hits, none for extra bases and only once had a runner on third base. With four doubles in the first game, Kevin Newman went just 1 for 3 in the second one and accounted for one of the Pirates’ eight strikeouts.
Mitch Keller started and fared OK. He went 4 1/3 innings and gave up two earned runs on nine hits. The line itself wasn’t ugly, although the Brewers had no problem making hard contact against Keller, who ceded nine balls with an average exit velocity of 95 mph or more.
Keller, who threw 51 of his 77 pitches for strikes but generated just seven whiffs, was helped by a couple of solid defensive plays early.
With two on and one out in the first, Michael Perez threw out left fielder Christian Yelich trying to steal second base. Rodolfo Castro used his athleticism to turn a double play himself in the second.
The big one came in the third. Shortstop Willy Adames hit a double off the top of the Clemente Wall. When Yelich singled, it looked like Adames might score the game’s first run, but Bryan Reynolds made a tremendous throw home to keep the Brewers off the scoreboard.
After playing to a stalemate through three, the Brewers took a 2-0 lead in the fourth. Garcia and catcher Omar Narvaez opened the inning with back-to-back singles, and Jace Peterson worked a full count.
In Keller’s first start, executing his breaking stuff with two strikes was a problem. It improved in Keller’s second start but came back to bite him here. Keller left a curveball up in the zone, and Peterson lined it into right-center for a run-scoring single.
Milwaukee doubled its lead when center fielder Lorenzo Cain hit a chopper to Castro at second. The hop backed Castro up a tad, and Cain also runs really well. He beat out the double play, allowing the run to score.
Keller exited the game in the fifth, as manager Derek Shelton turned to Anthony Banda to get a left-on-left matchup against Yelich. It worked. Banda got a pair of outs in the air that were sandwiched around an at-bat with right fielder Avisail Garcia where it looked like Banda wasn’t trying to throw the right-handed hitter a strike.
The Pirates did next to nothing against Ashby, who wound up working four scoreless innings while allowing three hits, no walks and striking out four. Brewers pitchers had retired 10 in a row when Gregory Polanco walked in the fifth, though Hoy Park ended the inning with a strikeout.
Trailing by 2, the wheels came off for the Pirates in the top of the sixth. First baseman Jace Peterson walked, and Cain reached on a bloop single — the ball falling between Kevin Newman and Ke’Bryan Hayes, who nearly collided and toppled to the ground.
Another mistake allowed a third Milwaukee run to score, as Michael Perez tried a back-pick on Cain at first and threw wide of the bag. Peterson scored from second by a hair.
The final blow was a home run that Rowdy Tellez, entering the game as a pinch-hitter, absolutely crushed. It came on an elevated fastball, and it bounced into the Allegheny River. Forty-two players have done that a total of 63 times, with Tellez’s homer traveling an estimated 445 feet.
Garcia tacked on a solo shot in the seventh to round out the scoring.
