Ke'Bryan Hayes smashes 3-run home run as Pirates rally to beat Cardinals
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Ke’Bryan Hayes added a toe tap to his swing as a way to find balance and load up for pitches, so when Giovanny Gallegos hung a slider over the heart of the plate, Hayes tapped the dirt and showed pull-side power.
Hayes smashed it 421 feet into the left field bleachers for a three-run home run to give the Pittsburgh Pirates the lead over the St. Louis Cardinals after falling behind by five runs.
Hayes’ homer sent the 23,388 at PNC Park into a frenzy, only to erupt again when Josh Palacios made it back-to-back homers with the first of his major league career.
With Hayes providing the heroics, the Pirates pulled off a six-run seventh inning rally to beat the Cardinals, 7-5, Friday night for their third consecutive victory.
“It was great,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “That’s what we’ve talked about. When he’s on time and he gets the ball up front, he has the ability to impact the ball. We definitely saw that.”
The Pirates (29-27) pulled to within a half-game of the Milwaukee Brewers (30-27) for first place in the NL Central. It marked the first win for the Pirates this season when trailing after six innings and, per Elias Sports Bureau, their first when trailing by four-plus runs entering the seventh inning since an 11-7 win over the Cardinals on Aug. 26, 2021.
Hayes answered dropping to seventh in the batting order by going 3 for 4 with four RBIs – a triple shy of hitting for the cycle – and smacking his second home run in six games after going a month between them.
“Man, it was awesome,” Hayes said, motioning toward Andrew McCutchen’s locker. “I’m sure that guy over there, he’s probably given them some even crazier moments. But, yeah, definitely, that was one of my bigger moments I’ve had in my career, so that was pretty fun.”
McCutchen, who went 2 for 4 to pull within three hits of 2,000 for his career, has watched Hayes work with Pirates hitting coach Andy Haines to find consistency in his plate approach after the third baseman batted .208 (20 for 96) in May.
“I’m hoping he can create more of those moments,” McCutchen said. “Sometimes, it takes some time to be confident in your work and to find something you feel confident in doing and take it out there in the game. It’s nice to see the work he’s been putting in to show forth. As a player, that’s what you want. He was able to do that tonight, and I’m hoping that confidence after is what kicks him to the next gear. I truly believe a game like (this) is going to do that for him.”
The Pirates dug a hole when Roansy Contreras returned to the rotation following a bullpen cameo and was hit hard for five runs with two outs in the third inning.
The 23-year-old right-hander struck out the side in the first inning, getting Brendan Donovan and Paul Goldschmidt looking at called third strikes and Nolan Gorman swinging at a 96-mph fastball. Nolan Arenado singled to start the second but was caught in a rundown for the final out.
Where Contreras painted the corners through two scoreless innings, the Cardinals hit him hard in the third. He gave up five hits with two outs, starting with Tommy Edman roping a double down the left field line at a 99-mph exit velocity.
That set the stage for the Cardinals to get four consecutive hits at exit velocities of 100 mph or higher. Donovan sent a 1-2 slider 387 feet over the Clemente Wall for a two-run home run. Goldschmidt followed with another double and scored on Gorman’s single to center to make it 3-0. Arenado hammered a 2-2 fastball, driving it 403 feet to right-center for his 10th home run and a 5-0 Cardinals lead before Willson Contreras finally flied out to center.
Roansy Contreras called the sudden scoring surge “unexpected.”
“I was having a little bit of trouble with two outs, trying to make pitches that I was not executing, but I battled through my outing,” Contreras said through interpret Stephen Morales. “Next time I will be better, for sure.”
The Pirates stranded runners at second and third in the bottom of the third. After Austin Hedges hit a leadoff single and Bryan Reynolds was hit by a pitch, Flaherty got McCutchen swinging at a slider on the outside corner. After both runners advanced on a wild pitch, Jack Suwinski was caught looking at a full-count fastball low and away.
Hayes hit a two-out double to left and Flaherty hit Palacios with a pitch to put a pair of runners on again in the fourth, but Hedges went down swinging.
The Pirates’ bullpen came up big, as the Cardinals had the bases loaded in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings but came away empty each time.
Cody Bolton walked the bases loaded in the sixth but got Gorman looking at a called third strike on a knee-high 97-mph fastball to escape the jam unscathed.
The Pirates finally scored off Flaherty in the sixth. Suwinski drew a leadoff walk, advanced to second on Carlos Santana’s single to right and reached third when Ji Hwan Bae grounded into a forceout at second. Hayes roped a single to center to score Suwinski and cut it to 5-1.
Andre Pallante replaced Flaherty, who allowed six hits and had six strikeouts in 5⅓ innings, and stranded runners on second and third by getting Hedges to ground out to short to end the inning.
The Cardinals loaded the bases against Bolton again in the seventh, but he got Jordan Walker to ground to first, where Santana threw to Hedges to force Arenado out at home. Yohan Ramirez replaced Bolton and got Edman to line out to center to escape another jam.
Tucupita Marcano started the seventh with a double down the left field line and McCutchen drew a walk, then they executed a double steal to put a pair of runners in scoring position. The Cardinals replaced Pallante with Giovanny Gallegos, but he walked Suwinski to load the bases and gave up a ground-rule, two-run double to Santana to cut it to 5-3.
After Bae struck out, Hayes came to bat and pulled his third home run of the season for a 6-5 lead. Palacios crushed a changeup 426 feet to right to make it 7-5. It marked the fifth time this season the Pirates have hit back-to-back home runs. The Pirates got a scoreless innings in the eighth from Colin Holderman and ninth by David Bednar for his 11th save.
“It’s always great to win,” Hayes said, “and to be able to come back like how we did shows that we’re never out of a game, especially whenever it’s within three, four runs, five runs.”
Source: TribLIVE
