PITTSBURGH — Lunch time Tuesday featured news that the Pirates had avoided an arbitration hearing with their best player, signing Bryan Reynolds to a two-year contract worth $13.5 million. It ended with a victory that was even more unlikely, especially after an ugly first inning.
It also happened thanks to a couple of interesting and borderline unexpected heroes, the Pirates getting four hits and a home run from their 250-pound leadoff hitter, Daniel Vogelbach, and some tremendous relief work from 22-year-old Roansy Contreras.
Add it up, and the Pirates did more than enough to grab a 9-4 victory over the Washington Nationals at PNC Park on Thursday, evening their record at 3-3 this season.
Vogelbach enjoyed the second four-hit game of his career, the other coming June, 12, 2019 when he was with Seattle. The punch-back that his first-inning homer provided was important. The same for singles in the third and seventh, a sixth-inning double as well. Vogelbach also scored three runs.
The Pirates' performance at the plate continued an early-season trend that's surely pleasing to manager Derek Shelton and first-year hitting coach Andy Haines. Pittsburgh has scored 24 runs in its three wins.
Furthermore, the Pirates — with games still happening as of this writing — ranked third among all MLB clubs in OPS (.775), sixth in hits (58) and ninth in total bases (88).
As for Contreras, he entered the game in the sixth inning to relieve Anthony Banda and looked absolutely outstanding. His breaking ball was thrown hard and had bite. The velocity remained. Contreras worked three innings, allowing one hit and no runs with a walk and five strikeouts; only one ball left the infield.
Contreras’ top two moments came against Juan Soto — whom Contreras seemed to befuddle with breaking stuff — and 41-year-old Nelson Cruz, who struck out swinging on a Contreras fastball.
The outing was the second of the season for Contreras, who's considered Pittsburgh's fifth-best prospect by MLB Pipeline and made his season debut last week in St. Louis.
Another pitching performance was less than inspiring, although JT Brubaker did a heck of a job to find something and put a sloppy first inning behind him. Brubaker walked three in the first and allowed three runs, though some of that could be ascribed to Hoy Park's adventures in right field.
Tracking left to right and nearing the warning track, Park misplayed a ball off the bat of Nationals catcher Keibert Ruiz, which allowed one run to score. Two more came in when Park botched an in-between hop and allowed the ball to trickle past him.
After the inning-ending boos subsided, Vogelbach gave fans something to cheer about with his first home run as a Pirate to open the bottom of the first. The left-handed Vogelbach got a four-seam fastball middle-away and drove it 419 feet out to center, cutting Washington’s lead to 3-1.
The Pirates grabbed the lead in the third, as they collected six hits and made some really solid contact against Nationals starter Joan Adon.
Reynolds hit his second homer of this season when he turned on a four-seam fastball and put it on the concourse beyond the right-center field wall. That scored two and tied the game at 3.
After Yoshi Tsutsugo and Ben Gamel singled, Kevin Newman found a fastball lower in the zone and ripped it to center field at 107.0. His two-run double also plated a pair, giving the Pirates a 5-3 advantage.
The turnaround Brubaker experienced was impressive. After left fielder Yadiel Hernandez’s single — the one Park couldn’t play on a hop — Brubaker retired eight of the next nine men he faced.
Furthermore, Brubaker pitched into the fifth inning while twice striking out Juan Soto looking — not easy to do considering the Nationals star walked (145) more than he struck out (93) in 2021. Brubaker got Soto on a couple of sinkers on the inner-half of the plate.
After Washington closed to 5-4 in the fifth, the Pirates answered in the bottom half and continued to add on. Roberto Perez singled home Newman for his fifth hit in as many games as a Pirate. The catcher is now hitting .294 (5 for 17) with Pittsburgh.
Tsutsugo's sacrifice fly scored a run in the sixth, when the Pirates took advantage of two walks and a Nationals error. Vogelbach's seventh-inning single scored another run, and Gamel walked with the bases loaded to make it 9-4.
It’s been a nice turnaround for Vogelbach, who started 1 for 8 but has seemingly found a nice groove of late. The Pirates were also smart to stay patient at the plate and took advantage of eight walks from Nationals pitchers.
