PITTSBURGH _ The Pirates picked a good time to get hot and a good opponent to stay hot against.
After defeating the Milwaukee Brewers, 4-3, at PNC Park on Tuesday night, the Pirates have won nine of their past 11 games. At 46-48, they trail the Brewers in the NL Central standings by five games, with two games remaining in this series. Manager Clint Hurdle and his charges operate inside a bubble supposedly impervious to outside noise _ but if the idea is to play well as the trade deadline approaches, with the chance to make up ground directly against the team they're chasing, it's working so far.
A four-run sixth inning flipped a 3-0 deficit into a lead. Francisco Cervelli and Josh Harrison homered in the inning, during which the Pirates sent nine men to the plate, and David Freese hit a go-ahead single.
Eight of the 10 hits Ivan Nova allowed came in the second and third innings, including six in a row to begin the third. The fourth of those hits was a three-run home run from Travis Shaw. After three hits in three at-bats against Nova Tuesday, Shaw is 10 for 13 with five extra-base hits and eight RBIs against Nova in his career.
Nova only contributed to one of the three outs in the third. The umpires ruled that a batted ball struck Domingo Santana, erasing his leadoff single, and Francisco Cervelli caught Hernan Perez stealing.
But when Nova got Keon Broxton to ground out, it began a stretch where he retired nine of the final 11 batters he faced. He allowed three runs in six innings, no unintentional walks and six strikeouts.
When Milwaukee claimed starter Junior Guerra off waivers from the Chicago White Sox in October 2015, he became the first player acquired under new general manager David Stearns, brought on near the end of a 68-94 record and fourth-place finish in 2015. Their rebuild, fueled in part by the acquisition of Travis Shaw and the savvy signing of Eric Thames after three seasons in Korea, might be ahead of schedule, but it's July 18 and they are 52-44.
The 32-year-old Guerra took a roundabout path to the rotation of a first-place team. His travels included not one but two stops with the independent-league Wichita Wingnuts as well as stints in Mexico and Italy. This year he was the Brewers' Opening-Day starter.
Guerra returned from the 10-day disabled list after taking a ball off his shin in his previous outing. It did not seem to affect him. He retired the first nine batters in order. In his first game back from an 80-game performance-enhancing drug suspension, Starling Marte singled to begin the bottom of the fourth but was picked off to end the inning, and the Pirates went in order in the fifth, by which point they trailed 3-0.
Cervelli's solo homer in the sixth put them on the board. After a two-out walk to Marte, Harrison hit his 11th home run of the season over the Clemente Wall in right field to tie the game. In the month of July, Harrison was 6 for 48 (.125) before the homer.
In came Oliver Drake, who had not allowed a run in his previous 10 appearances. He walked Andrew McCutchen and gave up a single to Josh Bell. Freese worked a full-count pitch for a go-ahead single through the right side.
