Blue Jays pound Pirates, who suffer 2nd consecutive sweep, drop 7th loss in a row
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After suffering a second consecutive sweep that stretched their losing streak to seven games, the Pittsburgh Pirates can take comfort in one thing: At least they don’t play in the American League East.
The Toronto Blue Jays followed the Tampa Bay Rays in sweeping a three-game series over the Pirates, who went from the hottest team in the National League in April to winless through the first week of May.
Behind home runs by Whit Merrifield, Daulton Varsho and Kevin Kiermaier, the Blue Jays beat the Pirates, 10-1, on Sunday afternoon before 21,655 at PNC Park. The start of the game was delayed 95 minutes because of inclement weather.
The Pirates have been outscored 44-9 in their seven-game skid and have led only once in that span. It came on Andrew McCutchen’s solo homer for a 1-0 lead in the top of the third inning Wednesday at Tampa Bay and lasted only half an inning as the Rays responded with three runs in the bottom of the third for an 8-1 win.
The Blue Jays outscored the Pirates, 22-3, and had 37 hits in three games, including 15 Sunday that tied for the most against the Pirates this season. That Toronto (20-15) is in third place in the AL East is a reminder of just how loaded that division is compared to the NL Central. And why the Pirates (20-15) welcome a three-game series against the Colorado Rockies (14-21) before visiting another AL East opponent in Baltimore (22-12) next weekend.
“Well, I spent a lot of time in the AL East and the AL East will make you gray very fast because it’s a grind, man,” said Pirates white-haired manager Derek Shelton, who previously coached with the Rays and Blue Jays. “It’s deep. It’s thick. They get after it every day.”
Thanks to the cushion provided by winning 20 of their first 28 games, the Pirates are still in first place in the NL Central. They remain a half-game ahead of the Milwaukee Brewers (19-15), who snapped a six-game losing streak Sunday with a 7-3 win over the San Francisco Giants.
“I think no one expected that pace to keep up and as well as we played,” Shelton said. “During that time, we were playing full games, and right now we’re not. We’re not pitching extremely well, we’re not swinging the bats extremely well. We’ve had some plays we should have made. We just need to reset a little bit and get back to the consistency we had. A little bit of that has to do with offensively not trying to do too much.”
The Blue Jays got 6 1/3 scoreless innings from lefty Yusei Kikuchi (5-0), who gave up four hits and two walks with three strikeouts. Toronto (21-14) scored five runs against Pirates right-hander Roansy Contreras (3-3), who allowed nine hits and three walks with four strikeouts on 94 pitches in five innings, and five more in the ninth against reliever Chase De Jong.
“Watching Toronto the first two days of the series, they are a very aggressive team offensively,” Contreras said. “But I think we did not execute our pitches when they needed to be executed.”
Bo Bichette singled to right and Varsho doubled to put runners on second and third with one out in the first. After striking out Matt Chapman, Contreras walked Brandon Belt to load the bases. Bichette scored to give the Blue Jays a 1-0 lead when Merrifield hit a grounder up the middle but beat the throw to first by second baseman Mark Mathias, who had trouble getting a grip on the ball.
Contreras gave up back-to-back singles to Chapman and Belt followed by a three-run home run by Merrifield, who drove a 1-2 curveball 385 feet to left field to give the Blue Jays a 4-0 lead in the third. Contreras was ahead in the count against all three batters.
Kiermaier doubled to right but was thrown out trying to stretch it into a triple when Miguel Andujar hit the cutoff in shortstop Rodolfo Castro, whose relay to Ke’Bryan Hayes got Kiermaier at third.
Chapman drew a walk to start the fifth, reached third on Belt’s double to center and scored on Danny Jansen’s groundout to third to give the Blue Jays a 5-0 lead.
The Pirates couldn’t get a runner past second base against Kikuchi through the first seven innings, stranding Ke’Bryan Hayes there after a leadoff walk and a steal in the first, Mathias after a two-out double in the fifth, Hayes after a single and a Carlos Santana two-out walk in the sixth and Andujar after a one-out double in the seventh.
Finally, Hayes singled through the middle to start the eighth and raced to third on Ji Hwan Bae’s double to the right-center gap to put a pair of runners in scoring position against Yimi Garcia. Santana hit a bloop single to left that scored Hayes to cut it to 5-1 and put runners on the corners for pinch hitter Andrew McCutchen, who drew a four-pitch walk to load the bases with one out for Jack Suwinski.
With the tying run at the plate, the Blue Jays brought in right-hander Jordan Romano to face Suwinski, who broke out of an 0-for-19 funk with a solo homer Saturday night. Romano struck out Suwinski, then got Andujar to pop up to third to escape the jam.
“If Jack hits a ball in the gap, all of a sudden we’re 5-3 or 5-4,” Shelton said. “It changes the course of who’s pitching in that game and what we’re doing. It’s just maybe relieving a little of that pressure. We need that one hit that kind of lets everybody take that deep breath and be like, ‘OK, here we go.’ Early in the season we got those; right now, we’re going through a tough stretch and we’re not getting them.”
The Blue Jays responded by scoring five runs in the ninth, thanks to a pair of homers. Varsho blasted De Jong’s 1-2 slider 413 feet over the right-field seats for a two-run shot and a 7-1 lead. The ball bounced into the Allegheny River, the 68th time it’s happened but the first for a Blue Jays player and the first for any player this season.
Belt singled off the top of the Clemente Wall and scored when Jansen doubled to center to make it 8-1. Kiermaier followed with a two-run homer to stretch the Blue Jays’ lead to 10-1. It marked the 10th homer by an opponent during the Pirates’ seven-game losing streak.
“A losing stretch is always going to be tough,” Suwinski said. “I think it’s still really early. We’ve seen and shown what we can do as a team. I know that we can get back to that spot. I think there is a little bit of pressure we’re putting on ourselves. Everyone wants to perform. Everyone wants to play well. When we were doing really good, everyone was not trying to do too much, playing for the team, playing for each other. Guys are still working really hard, and we’re still in a pretty good spot. It’ll come.”
Source: TribLIVE
