MILWAUKEE (AP) — What has happened to the House of Horrors?
The Pirates batted around in a six-run first inning Tuesday at Miller Park and breezed to a 7-3 win, ensuring them at least a series split against the first-place Milwaukee Brewers. Pittsburgh has won eight of its past nine games at the ballpark which once haunted the ballclub. Lately, not even the ghosts of the Pfister Hotel in downtown Milwaukee have given the visitors trouble.
“Nothing I can really point to,” manager Clint Hurdle said, searching for clues of what has turned his team’s fortune, “other than a really good brand of baseball.”
The reasons the Pirates (33-38) prevailed Tuesday were easier to spot.
Andrew McCutchen was 3 for 3 with a home run, a walk and three RBIs. Jose Osuna hit a three-run homer off right-hander Zach Davies in the first-inning surge. And Josh Harrison paid the price for offense, wearing two baseballs to bring his league-leading hit-by-pitch total to 14.
Right-hander Chad Kuhl navigated heavy traffic for five innings, allowing two runs on seven hits. He walked two and struck out six — each on the slider, his punch-out pitch, and each with at least one runner in scoring position. One of Kuhl’s strikeout victims was Eric Thames, who has 20 homers this season. In nine at-bats this series, Thames has six strikeouts and no hits.
Kuhl was shaky at times but seemed to buckle down in big moments, stranding runners in scoring position in four of five innings. Kuhl pitched out of the stretch for a majority of his outing, Hurdle pointed out, and “there were some really good sequences done with men on base, and there were some sequences that were off a little bit to get the men on base.”
Kuhl (2-6) hasn’t pitched beyond the fifth since April 18, 11 starts ago.
“I used a lot of my bullets tonight, but it had to be done,” Kuhl said. The 24-year-old sinker-baller has tried to reinvent himself this year, mixing in more four-seam fastballs and curveballs. He’s had the slider in his pocket for years. “Still relying a lot on the two-seam fastball to get ground balls,” he continued, “but when that’s not there I can’t just be a one-trick pony.”
Kuhl and the bullpen had sufficient run support plus a few sparkling plays from the defense. Third baseman David Freese made two barehanded plays, charging in to field choppers and firing across the diamond to first base. Adam Frazier ended the game with a diving catch in left. When a reporter described the 34-year-old Freese’s performance as acrobatic, he laughed.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever heard myself and acrobatic in the same sentence,” he said.
“The two plays by Freese were out of this world,” Hurdle added.
On Monday, after Gerrit Cole’s single sparked a four-run seventh inning, Hurdle remarked, “A lot of times, those rallies start real innocent.” The same was somewhat true Tuesday when, with one out in the first, Harrison was hit by an innocent 90 mph fastball from Davies (7-4). While going first to third on Gregory Polanco’s single, Harrison was hit in the back with a throw.
Freese opened the scoring with an RBI single. Elias Diaz — filling in for Francisco Cervelli, who was scratched from the lineup because of flu-like symptoms — loaded the bases with a bloop base hit. After fouling off four pitches, McCutchen drilled a full-count, two-run single over shortstop.
The next batter, Osuna, started at first base Tuesday night because Hurdle, having decided to give Josh Bell a day off from starting, liked the aggressiveness of Osuna’s swings May 7, when he homered off Davies at PNC Park. In their second meeting Tuesday, Osuna sent Davies’ third offering over the wall in left-center field for his fifth homer this season.
“That’s unfortunate,” Hurdle said after Harrison was hit by another pitch later in the game. “It’s getting a little out of hand.”
As a general rule, when a starting pitcher comes to bat before he pitches, he has received some cushion. Kuhl stepped into the batter’s box with only one out in the first and Jordy Mercer standing at third base after tripling. Mock applause circled the ballpark after Kuhl struck out, and Frazier grounded out to end an inning in which he committed the first and final outs.
Backed by a big lead, Kuhl said, “It was almost like a weight lifted off.”
In the third, McCutchen’s crushed a 408-foot rocket down the left-field line. It was McCutchen’s 14th home run this season, his second this series and his 30th against the Brewers (38-35) — tying him with Jay Bruce for most homers among opposing players.
For McCutchen, the daily trajectory tracker continues. Since bottoming out at .200 in May and moving to the six spot in the lineup, he is 34 for 85 (.400) with eight homers, 12 walks, 14 extra-base hits and 23 RBIs over 23 starts. In this series, McCutchen is 5 for 8 with six RBIs.
“It’s always good to get going in the right direction,” McCutchen said, “to be playing good ball against the first-place team in our division.”
