The Pittsburgh Pirates put together three aspects of winning baseball Friday night in their 6-1 victory against the Brewers at American Family Field in Milwaukee.
• The most important was the performance of starting and winning pitcher JT Brubaker, who worked six innings (83 pitches), striking out eight without a walk and surrendering only one run and four hits. He hit three batters, but none of them scored. In the process, Brubaker (2-0) lowered his ERA from 1.93 to 1.76 in his three starts.
• On the other side of the ball, the Pirates rapped out eight hits, including Colin Moran’s third home run of the season, Adam Frazier’s two-run triple and Bryan Reynolds’ RBI double. Gregory Polanco added his second homer in three games in the eighth inning, a two-run, 407-foot shot to center field.
• Finally, Brubaker got help from his bullpen over the final three innings. The Brewers loaded the bases against Chris Stratton in the seventh, but Sam Howard came into the game and threw one pitch to Travis Shaw, who flew out to left field. Kyle Crick and Duane Underwood Jr. worked the eighth and ninth without incident.
The victory helped the Pirates (6-8) improve their record to 5-2 since a six-game losing streak in the first week of the season.
Brubaker wasn’t without his hiccups, however, and he had to work out of trouble in the third and fifth innings. He went from dominant in the first two innings to losing command of his pitches in the third.
He used only 14 pitches to retire the Brewers’ first six batters. It was the fewest in the first two innings of any game in the majors this season and the fewest by the Pirates in 10 years (Jeff Karstens).
But the third inning was almost a nightmare.
Brubaker allowed a double by Luis Urias, the second batter of the inning.
Then, after he struck out pitcher Adrian Houser, Brubaker drilled leadoff hitter Jackie Bradley Jr. and Keston Huira.
With the bases loaded and two out, the crowd at American Family Field got noisy, looking for more drama. The next batter was Shaw, who worked Brubaker to a full count before striking out swinging on a pitch in the middle of the plate.
Shaw caught a piece of it, but catcher Jacob Stallings easily caught the foul tip. It was Brubaker’s 24th pitch of the inning, and it registered 93.4 mph.
In the fifth inning, Brubaker faced a similar dilemma when he allowed Tyrone Taylor’s RBI double and hit Huira with a pitch for the second time.
Again, that brought Shaw to the plate with two out. Shaw grounded up the middle, but shortstop Kevin Newman was positioned behind the bag and was able to record the easy forceout. Overall, Shaw stranded eight runners, five from scoring position, after entering the game with three homers and 12 RBIs.
Other than the three hit-by-pitches, Brubaker displayed good command.
Before the game, Pirates manager Derek Shelton said he wanted to see Brubaker “(trust) his stuff in the strike zone.”
“I think that’s a challenge for all the young pitchers,” Shelton said. “When they get to be really good pitchers, they do it every time out or four out of five times.
“With Bru, we’re still in the situation where we’re getting him to trust. ‘You’re stuff’s really good, man. Just go after people and attack them and you can stay in the zone and get outs.’
“All young pitchers learn that.”
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Jerry DiPaola is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Jerry by email at jdipaola@triblive.com or via Twitter .
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April 17, 2021 at 10:23AM
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JT Brubaker finds strike zone, leads Pirates past Brewers - TribLIVE
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