Three batters, two homers, one dead Detroit lead
Kenley Jansen needed three outs. He got two swings he will want back.
Pittsburgh had been trailing for eight innings on Wednesday night at PNC Park before the ninth turned everything upside down. Rafael Flores Jr. tied it with a homer. Two batters later Brandon Lowe drove another one over the wall, and the Pirates had a 4-3 win nobody watching the first eight innings saw coming. Jansen falls to 3-5.
Flores Jr. gets the strangest line of the night. He came in as a pinch-hitter in the seventh and went deep in both of his plate appearances.
Try it for $0.99.
Skenes struggled, the bullpen carried him
Paul Skenes was not himself. Three runs on four hits over four and a third, and Pittsburgh’s ace was gone early.
What followed was the game. Four relievers combined to blank Detroit across the last four and two-thirds. Mason Montgomery pitched out of a two-hit mess to open the ninth and walked off with the win at 5-3.
Detroit had done enough. Kevin McGonigle drove in two. Jackson Jobe held the line on the mound, one run on four hits across five and a third. All of it wasted.
The kind of loss that follows a team home
One-run lead, veteran arm on the mound, three outs to go. Gone in a handful of pitches.
Pittsburgh will take it and then some. A game they were losing for eight innings, flipped in one, with a bullpen that covered for a rough Skenes start.
Detroit fly home with a defeat that had no business happening and a closing question that is not going away.
Discover the rest of the MLB news on our mathodds website and app!
in your pocket.
Real-time notifications & alerts
Leave a Reply