Reds rally with 4-run 10th inning to beat Pirates

The Pittsburgh Pirates’ starting lineup didn’t offer much promise in the way of offense, with their top three hitters missing from the batting order and only three players hitting above the Mendoza Line.

Even so, the Pirates found ways to get on base and put runners in scoring position against the Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday afternoon. Driving them in was another story, even as their pitching kept them in the game.

That changed in the 10th inning, when Jesse Winker drove in the go-ahead run off Duane Underwood Jr., and Eugenio Suarez hit a bases-clearing double as the Reds won, 5-1, before 4,515 at PNC Park.

The Reds (17-17) took two out of three games to win the series for the second time this season against the Pirates (15-21), who have lost 10 of their past 13 since reaching .500 on April 27.

Pirates manager Derek Shelton rested second baseman Adam Frazier, center fielder Bryan Reynolds and catcher Jacob Stallings, taking the team’s top three hitters out of the starting lineup before using them as late-inning replacements for Phillip Evans and Ka’ai Tom.

That left only three players hitting above the Mendoza Line — with shortstop Kevin Newman straddling it at .200 – in the batting order. Wilmer Difo (.250), who started at second base, was the only player hitting better than .214.

Even so, the Pirates reached base in each of the first five innings against Reds starter Sonny Gray and had runners in scoring position in each of those innings thanks to erratic control.

Gray threw four wild pitches and walked two batters while allowing seven hits in 4 2/3 innings. That snapped Gray’s streak of 48 consecutive games allowing six hits or fewer, dating to Aug. 25, 2018, that was the longest in MLB history (excluding openers).

Yet the Pirates went 1 for 13 with runners in scoring position.

“I thought we did a pretty good job of going out there and competing,” Newman said. “Sonny made some good pitches when it really counted today, and weren’t able to get those runs in ultimately. Obviously, we want to. We do our best to get them in, but sometimes you’ve got to tip your cap when he makes the pitches, so flush it and work on it and come back ready to score.”

Gray’s wild pitch allowed Pirates runners Ben Gamel and Difo to advance to second and third, respectively, with one out in the second inning, but he got Michael Perez looking at a called third strike and Trevor Cahill to ground out to first to escape the jam.

Cahill gave up only three hits in 5 1/3 innings but one of them was a leadoff home run to Mike Moustakas in the fourth inning.

After getting Moustakas to swing and miss on a curveball, Moustakas drilled the next pitch 396 feet into the right field seats for his fourth home run of the season and 600th career RBI to give the Reds a 1-0 lead.

“You just tip your cap. He gets paid a lot of money to hit those,” Cahill said. “Anyone else you could say, if I could take that pitch back without the result, I would say, ‘Yeah, let’s throw that pitch.’ He just beat me.”

Otherwise, Cahill induced soft contact, getting 11 groundouts against 19 batters, which is exactly what the Pirates have come to expect of the veteran right-hander.

“When he’s got everything going for him — when both breaking balls are working for him, the changeup is working — he has the ability to put the ball on the ground, and it’s something we saw,” Shelton said. “In the last start, he gave up some really soft-hit ground balls because of it, but I think when he’s effective, that’s what he’s doing.”

The Pirates tied it in the fifth. After Newman hit a bloop single to shallow left, Phillip Evans followed with a sharp single through shortstop, and Gregory Polanco drove in Newman with a line drive single to right to make it 1-1.

Evans, however, was injured advancing to second, left the game with left hamstring discomfort and was replaced by pinch runner Frazier. Both runners advanced when Gray threw his fourth wild pitch, but Frazier was forced out at home on a sharp grounder to short by Erik Gonzalez. With Pirates runners on second and third, the Reds brought in reliever Tejay Antone, and he struck out Difo to end the inning.

The Reds opened the eighth with a Jesse Winker single off Chasen Shreve. David Bednar replaced Shreve and struck out three of the four batters he faced, whiffing Suarez on a 100 mph fastball with runners on first and second.

The Pirates used closer Richard Rodriguez in the ninth, so they turned to Underwood in the 10th. Senzel started on second base and scored on Winker’s single to left for a 2-1 lead. Underwood then gave up a Nick Castellanos single to right and walked Moustakas to load the bases for Suarez, who drove one deep to left-center.

That’s where the Pirates came up short.

“It 100% came down to it, because our bullpen was really good until the last inning and then we didn’t execute some pitches,” Shelton said. “But I don’t think we could ask for any more. We have to score. We have to find a way to get runs across. We had opportunities, especially against Sonny Gray, to put people on base, which people have not done in the last couple of years. We gave ourselves opportunities, then didn’t capitalize on them.”