Derek Shelton laughed at the suggestion, that the perfect antidote for the Pittsburgh Pirates after getting swept by the team with the worst record in baseball was to play the team with the game’s best record.

“I don’t know if you ever welcome a challenge of playing the team with the best record in the National League,” Shelton said before Friday’s game, “but we played well against the Mets then did not play well in Arizona, so I’m looking forward to our guys bouncing back.”

Where the Pittsburgh Pirates found creative ways to lose a three-game series to the Arizona Diamondbacks, they got the gift of an unexpected gaffe from the San Francisco Giants to score three runs without getting a hit in the seventh inning to break open a tied game for a 6-4 win Friday night at Oracle Park.

“It was a good response for us,” said Pirates center fielder Bryan Reynolds, who went 2 for 5 with his 18th home run and 56th RBI. “We had the off day to clear our heads a little bit and hit the restart button. It was good to come out here against a good team and get a win.”

The win snapped a four-game losing streak by the Pirates (37-60), as Chad Kuhl tied a career-best with eight strikeouts while allowing three runs on six hits and one walk on 94 pitches over 5⅓ innings. After winning three of four over the Los Angeles Dodgers for a three-game lead in the NL West, the Giants (61-36) rallied from a 3-0 deficit only to blow it.

In the three-run seventh, Jacob Stallings drew a leadoff walk and Kevin Newman reached on a fielder’s choice when the Giants failed to force Stallings out at second. Pinch hitter Wilmer Difo showed bunt but drew a walk to load the bases. Dominic Leone (2-1) then walked Adam Frazier for the go-ahead run, making it 4-3. Ke’Bryan Hayes reached on another fielder’s choice.

Jarlin Garcia replaced Leone and struck out Reynolds for the second out, then got Ben Gamel to ground to first for what should have been an inning-ending play. Instead, LaMonte Wade Jr. bobbled the ball for an error that allowed Difo and Frazier to score for a 6-3 lead.

“You don’t score three runs very often without a hit,” Shelton said. “What you saw in that inning is something that is really important for us organizationally. You see Jacob Stallings go hard into second. They don’t turn a double play. You see Ke’Bryan bust his butt on a ground ball where it could have been a double play. You see Frazier score from second on that. You see Gamel go hard down the line. I think it’s a testament to our group because we had given up two runs, given up the lead, then they came right back and they really played hard.”

The Pirates took a 1-0 lead when Ben Gamel drew a leadoff walk in the second inning then scored on Gregory Polanco’s triple to the right field corner. Cueto recovered to strike out Stallings and Newman to strand Polanco at third.

After Hayes hit a one-out single in the third inning, Cueto almost picked him off at first. The Giants challenged, but a video review upheld the safe call by first base umpire Laz Diaz. Reynolds was looking for an elevated pitch and drilled a 3-2 slider 413 feet to right for a two-run home run to give the Pirates a 3-0 lead.

Kuhl struck out six of the first seven batters he faced through the first two innings, all on sliders. Kuhl escaped trouble in the first inning. Buster Posey doubled then took third on a wild pitch before Kuhl got Alex Dickerson swinging. Kuhl struck out the side in the second, but it was at the expense of a pitch count that reached 39 after two innings.

“It probably looked good, but it was just one of those things where I got a ton of swings and misses,” Kuhl said. “I really wanted some early action. I’ll take quick outs over strikeouts any day, but the slider was working and we just stuck with it. It didn’t matter what count, if it was 2-0 or 0-2, I just had such good feel for it that we rolled with it.”

That only increased in an eight-pitch at-bat to lead off the third, which ended with Steven Duggar driving a slider 372 feet into McCovey Cove for his seventh home run to cut it to 3-1. Kuhl followed by walking Cueto — the fifth time he walked the opposing pitcher this season — and then allowed him to steal second base. Kuhl tied his career high with eight strikeouts through the first three innings but wouldn’t whiff another batter through the next three.

The Giants caught a couple of hanging sliders in the sixth, when Posey doubled off the right field wall and Dickerson followed with his 10th homer, a 396-foot shot to right that tied the game at 3-3.

“I thought the slider was probably as good as we’ve seen it all year,” Shelton said, “with the exception of the two (homers).”

Chris Stratton (3-0) replaced Kuhl and finished off the sixth. After failing to get a hit against Clay Holmes and David Bednar, the Giants rallied in the ninth against Richard Rodriguez when pinch hitter Darin Ruf drew a two-out walk and scored on Wade’s triple to make it 6-4. But Rodriguez got Mike Yastrzemski on an outside fastball for a called third strike to end the game for his 14th save.

“That’s a good win for our club,” Shelton said. “To bounce back after the Arizona series where we didn’t play well and really do a lot of things well. “

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)