The Pirates and the Padres matched zeroes all the way to the ninth inning. Then the Bucs’ Oneil Cruz came to the plate against the best closer in baseball, Pittsburgh native Mason Miller.
Here’s Greg Brown.
Bryan Reynolds had two of the Pirates’ six hits.
Oneil Cruz told a teammate he would hit the home run and just before the at-bat he told Sportsnet Pittsburgh’s Hannah Mears to “lock in and watch.” Manager Donnie Kelly says it was a classic matchup…a fastball pitcher against a fastball hitter.
Kelly loved the approach by his pitchers, Paul Skenes, Camilo Doval, Gregory Soto, and Mason Montgomery.
Skenes threw first-pitch strikes to 15 of the 21 batters he faced and 55 of his 87 pitches were strikes. He said he tweaked his delivery between starts and was able to pitch ahead in the count.
After being swept against the Dodgers over the weekend, the Pirates have a chance to get one this afternoon in the series finale. Bubba Chandler (6-8, 4.38 ERA) pitches for the Pirates against Padres right-hander Randy Vásquez (9-6, 4.19 ERA). Airtime is 3:45, first pitch at 4:10 on WCCS.
Pirates pitcher Braxton Ashcraft calls the rule which mandates that a pitcher declare to the umpires whether he’s going to pitch from a windup or the stretch when a runner is on third base “the dumbest rule in baseball,” and he wants baseball’s players’ union and the Joint Competition Committee to examine it. He says it’s not always called, but it was on Monday night against him and it ended up costing him a run and fifteen extra pitches. Ashcraft had informed the umpires before the first batter he faced in that situation, but not before the second.
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