PITTSBURGH — It had been a long time coming for Bryan Reynolds.
The Pirates’ center fielder began the season with a bang, signing a two-year extension to eat up a pair of arbitration years. But on the field in April, he was hitting below his lofty, All-star standards, entering Friday’s game hitting .188 with a .577 OPS. Saturday, he finally got a good thing rolling.
The Pirates and San Diego Padres were all square after nine, needing extras to decide it. The Padres scored their automatic runner from second in the top of the 10th, and Pittsburgh swiftly answered. Third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes bounced a single up the middle to score outfielder Jake Marisnick, Pittsburgh’s own automatic runner. Then came Reynolds.
He fell into an 0-2 count and ripped a grounder just inside the first-base line and under the glove of Padres first baseman Eric Hosmer. Hayes was running all the way from first, rounding third and sliding in headfirst at home, just beating the tag. It was officially ruled an error with no RBI for Reynolds, but the way things have been going, he didn’t mind. After all, it was good enough for a win, as the Pirates downed the Padres, 7-6.
Saturday was a day for the Pirates to exorcise their demons all around. It had been more than a week since the Pirates last homered.
Last Friday, April 22, Michael Chavis sent a fourth-inning pitch into the stands at Wrigley Field against the Chicago Cubs. Since then, the Pirates had gone 1-5. In four of those losses, they had scored three runs or fewer, with the only outlier a 12-8 defeat to the Milwaukee Brewers.
The point is, the Pirates’ offense has been laboring for much of the last week, and it was Chavis again who brought out the defibrillators to bring some life back into the lineup.
Down two runs in the eighth inning, Chavis came up with a runner on first and nobody out. He went hunting on the first pitch but was thrown a slider that wasn’t as much hanging as it was high out of the zone altogether. No matter, Chavis tomahawked it on a line drive, 400 feet to left field, tying the game with a two-run blast.
Really, as soon as Chavis homered, fortune was in the Pirates’ favor. Four runs have been the team’s magic number of sorts this season. With this win, the Pirates are now 9-1 when they score four runs or more and 0-11 in when they score fewer than four.
Though Chavis and Reynolds saved the day, the offense did get a fast start. Third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes ripped a hard single into center to lead off the bottom of the first, moved to second on a walk to center fielder Reynolds, then scored on a single from first baseman Chavis. The Padres plated three in the top of the fourth, but Pittsburgh bounced right back. Roberto Pérez singled, then Josh VanMeter doubled to the wall in right-center to score him.
Similar to the home run streak that Chavis ended, VanMeter’s double did similarly. It marked just the second extra-base hit in the last four games. Reynolds scored him on a fielder’s choice three batters later.
The win marked one of the first times all season that the Pirates’ lineup saved its pitching. Right-hander JT Brubaker started and looked stellar through three frames, allowing just one hit on 35 pitches at the time. In the fourth, though, he got knocked around, allowing two doubles a home run and a walk to bring in three Padres runs. He buckled down to get through five.
Then, after the Pirates tied it back up at three, their most reliable pitcher, David Bednar, took the eighth inning and allowed a two-run homer of his own, the first runs he has allowed through 9 2/3 innings this season.
It didn’t end up mattering. The Pirates mustered timely offense to steal one, with Reynolds and the rest of the offense getting back on track.
