Final Score: Pirates 9 Marlins 7 in 10 innings.
Why The Pirates Won: Again, it was the 2 out lightening of the offense, this time scoring 8 of their 9 runs after 2 were out. This offense, which is on fire, scored 9 runs on 11 hits and 7 walks. The hits were spread out pretty evenly with only Ke'Bryan Hayes and Jared Triolo getting 2 hits. The only starter to not get a hit was Jason Delay, but he walked and laid down the beautiful bunt that scored the go ahead run in the top of the 8th. It was another offensive win for the Pirates who scored 31 runs in the 4-game sweep. Barry Falter pretty much stunk getting touched up for 5 runs in the 1st inning including a grand slam home run. In his nifty 4 innings of work he gave up 6 runs on 4 hits, including 2 home runs while walking 3. Hopefully this will be the last time we see Falter starting for the Pirates. They should move Luis Ortiz into the starting rotation by the end of the week. I did hear that the Marlins may be interested in acquiring Falter so they can have 5 awful left-hand pitchers in the rotation. The Pirates did announce that Marco Gonzales will start against the Nationals today so he must be ok. The only weak link in this Pirate team has been the starting rotation. Jared Jones had the best start, but it was still not considered a quality start. The rest of the rotation has been pretty much terrible. The bullpen has been lights out, but this cannot go on forever. The team needs a starter to go 6 or 7 innings. The Pirates are miraculously 4-0 when they could easily be 2-2 or even 1-3. The Marlins looked lousy in this series, but it will be interesting to see where these teams are at the All-Star break.
Key Moment Of Game: The Pirates trailed 6-4 going into the top of the 7th and got the first two runners on base. Then Suwinski flied out and Triolo struck out to bring up Rowdy (Please Let Me See A Right-Handed Pitcher) Tellez. He had struck out 3 straight times against left-handed pitching but finally got to bat against a right hander, Vladimir Gutierrez. He battled for 8 pitches working the count to 3 and 2, fouling off the last 3 pitches. On the 9th pitch he lifted a towering drive to centerfield for a 3-run homer to give the Pirates the lead 7-6. A rusty Bednar gave up a tying home run in the bottom of the 9th to send the game into extra innings. The Marlins completely botched up 2 bunts and walked in another run to ensure that the Pirates would sweep the series. Hunter Stratton pitched a solid bottom of the 10th, getting a nice low-ball strike to end the game and seal the win.
Next Game: This afternoon, the Nationals in D. C. Marco Gonzales will pitch for the Pirates. Why he did not pitch yesterday I do not know. Maybe they did not want him to make his Pirate debut with the typical goofy Sunday lineup. Hopefully this does not affect his confidence that they made it look like Falter was the 4th starter over him. Let us hope that Falter can lead Indianapolis to a championship.
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