Bryce Harper, Andrew McCutchen homer as Phillies top Pirates in Grapefruit League play

Chad Kuhl couldn’t have been happier about the execution of his top three pitches, effectively mixing the use of his slider, curveball and changeup against the Philadelphia Phillies.

It’s what Kuhl called his fourth-best pitch, a four-seam fastball, that Bryce Harper drilled for a two-run home run and Roman Quinn hit for a double off the Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander.

Harper and Andrew McCutchen homered, as the Phillies beat the Pirates, 3-0, in a nine-inning Grapefruit League game Friday afternoon at BayCare Ballpark in Clearwater, Fla. The loss dropped the Pirates to 2-3-1, their first sub-.500 record of the spring.

Kuhl (1-1) allowed two runs on three hits with two strikeouts in two innings, throwing 19 of his 26 pitches for strikes while facing nine batters. Working on his four-seamer was on the agenda.

“My four-seam fastball is my fourth-best pitch, so it’s simple: Why wouldn’t I throw pitches that get better results more often, then kind of pitch backwards and sequence that way?” Kuhl said. “Today, my four-seam fastballs were … I’m not saying they were in perfect spots, but they were still in decent spots, but they got barreled still.

“So it’s just picking when and where to use those, because it was the only thing that got hit today. It’s a four-seam fastball-hunting league. With everybody throwing so hard now, guys have wicked breaking stuff. It’s just kind of picking when and where.”

Harper smacked Kuhl’s 1-1 pitch 367 feet over the left-field fence to give the Phillies a 2-0 lead in the first inning. Harper later singled off Wil Crowe in the third and reached second on Crowe’s wild pitch.

Kuhl is working with Pirates pitching coach Oscar Marin on the pressure and grip of his two-seam fastball, throwing from 90 feet every day to get extension on it. Kuhl said he felt “a world of difference” with the two-seamer from his first start of the spring Sunday against Baltimore, noting he used it after giving up the Harper homer to get Jean Segura and Andrew Knapp to ground out to end the inning.

“It’s just getting comfortable with where I’m at in my delivery to make that a consistent pitch,” Kuhl said. “So it’s just seeing feedback like that and being around the zone, being in a good spot with it. It gives you that instant feedback that you’re looking for.”

After striking out in his first two at-bats — swinging on a Kuhl changeup and on a foul tip of a Crowe fastball — McCutchen hit a solo shot on a 0-2 Blake Cederlind 98 mph sinker up in the zone for a 3-0 Phillies lead in the fifth.

Crowe, a right-hander acquired from the Washington Nationals in the Josh Bell trade, allowed two hits while throwing 19 strikes on 30 pitches against eight batters in two innings.

The Pirates started a lineup that included Will Craig at first base, Rodolfo Castro at second, Wilmer Difo at shortstop and Phillip Evans at third, with Troy Stokes Jr. in right and Kevin Kramer in left. They managed two hits — a single by Difo off Archie Bradley in the fourth and another by Travis Swaggerty off JoJo Romero in the ninth.

The game also featured the spring debut of right-hander Edgar Santana, who had Tommy John surgery in 2019 and missed last season with a suspension for using performance-enhancing drugs. Santana worked a 1-2-3 sixth inning, throwing seven of his nine pitches for strikes.

The Pirates play the New York Yankees at 1:05 p.m. Saturday, with Cody Ponce scheduled to face Jameson Taillon.