Ke’Bryan Hayes added a tap to his swing as a means of finding balance and loading pitches, so when Giovanny Gallegos hung a slider over the heart of the plate, Hayes tapped the dirt and showed off side pull.
Hayes smashed 421 feet into the left field bleachers for a triple home run to give the Pittsburgh Pirates the lead over the St. Louis Cardinals after falling behind by five runs.
Hayes’ 23,388 homer at PNC Park sent it into a frenzy, only to erupt again when Josh Palacios made it back-to-back with teammates for his first major league hit.
With Hayes pitching for the championships, the Pirates pulled off a seventh six-run victory to defeat the Cardinals, 7-5, on Friday night for their third straight victory.
“It was great,” said Pirates manager Derek Shelton. “That’s what we talked about. When he’s on time and puts the ball in front, he has the ability to influence the ball. We’ve definitely seen that.”
The Pirates (29-27) cruised past the Milwaukee Brewers (30-27) to take first place in the NL Central. It was the Pirates’ first win of the season when trailing after six innings, and according to the Elias Sports Bureau, their first when trailing by four runs in the seventh inning since an 11-7 win over the Cardinals on Aug. 26, 2021. .
Hayes answered the drop to seventh in the batting order by going 3-for-4 with four RBIs—three times shy of hit for the cycle—and hitting his second home run in six games after going a month in between.
“Man, that was awesome,” said Hayes, pointing to Andrew McCutcheon’s locker. “I’m sure that guy over there, he probably gave them some of the craziest moments. But, yeah, sure, that was one of my biggest moments I’ve had in my career, so that was a lot of fun.”
McCutcheon, who went 2-for-4 to strike within three of his 2,000 career hits, watched Hayes work with Pirates hitting coach Andy Haines to find consistency in his approach to the plate after the third baseman hit . 208 (20-for-96) in May.
“Hopefully he can create more of those moments,” McCutcheon said. “Sometimes it takes time to be confident in your work and find something you feel confident in doing and get it out there in the game. It’s good to see the work he’s been doing to show that. As a player, that’s what you want. He was able to do that tonight, And I hope it was the confidence that followed that got him into the next gear. I really think a game like (this) would do that for him.”
The Pirates dug a hole when Roancy Contreras returned to spinning after the bullpen cameo and was hit hard for five runs with two out in the third.
The 23-year-old right-hander hits the side in the first inning, with Brendan Donovan and Paul Goldschmidt looking at named third strikes and Nolan Gorman swinging at 96mph. Nolan Arenado scored the start of the second game, but was caught off guard by the final touchdown.
As Contreras drew corners through two scoreless innings, the Cardinals hit him hard in the third. He gave up five hits with two outs, starting with Tommy Edman hooking a double down the left field line with an out speed of 99 mph.
That set the stage for the Cardinals to get four straight hits at exit speeds of 100 mph or higher. Donovan sent a 1-2-meter slider 387 feet over Clemente’s wall on a two-run home run. Goldschmidt followed with another double and scored on Gorman’s one-hit touchdown to make it 3-0. Arenado hit a 2-2 fastball, driving it 403 feet to right center for his 10th home run and the Cardinals took a 5-0 lead before Wilson Contreras finally moved to center.
Rwanci-Contreras called the sudden increase in points “unexpected”.
“I was having a little bit of trouble with a couple of sides, trying to put up performances I wasn’t going to get, but I struggled through my outings,” Contreras said through Stephen Morales’ interpretation. “Next time I will definitely be better.”
Pirates runners on second and third were stranded in the bottom of the third. After Austin Hedges hit a leadoff single and Brian Reynolds was hit by a pitch, Flaherty made McCutcheon swing a slider into the outside corner. After both runners led on a wild pitch, Jack Swinski was caught looking at a full-count fastball low and away.
Hayes rocked a double to left and hit Flaherty Palacios with a pitch to set up a pair of runners again in the fourth, but Hedges fell swinging.
The Pirates game featured big, loading the bases in the Cardinals’ fifth, sixth, and seventh innings, but coming up empty every time.
Cody Bolton walked the bases loaded in the sixth but got Gorman to look at the third strike on a fastball that reached 97 mph to escape the jam unscathed.
The Pirates finally scored on Flaherty in the sixth. Pulling a lead, Swinsky moved up to second on a Carlos Santana single to the right and reached third when Ji Hwan Pae entered the powerhouse at second. Hayes pulled one to the middle to score Swinski and cut it to 5-1.
Andre Ballant replaced Flaherty, who allowed six hits and had six hits in 5.mw-parser-output .sr-only{border:0;clip:rect(0,0,0,0);height:1px;margin:-1px;overflow:hidden;padding:0;position:absolute;width:1px;white-space:nowrap} ⁄ innings, and stranded runners on second and third by having Hedges swing short to end the inning.
The Cardinals loaded the bases against Bolton again in the seventh, but he got Jordan Walker to ground out first, as Santana threw to Hedges to force Arenado into a home run. Johan Ramirez replaced Bolton and had Edman line up to the center to escape another jam.
Tucupita Marcano started the seventh inning with a double down the left line and McCutchen pulled a walk, then ran a steal of a double to put a pair of runners in scoring position. The Cardinal replaced Palante with Giovanni Gallegos, but walked Swinsky to load the bases and gave up the ground base, two runs to Santana to cut it to 5–3.
After hitting Bay, Hayes came to bat and pulled his third home run of the season to take a 6-5 lead. Palacios smashed a 426-foot changeup to the right to make it 7-5. This is the fifth time this season that the Pirates have hit consecutive home runs. The Pirates got a scoreless run in the eighth by Colin Holdman and the ninth by David Bednar’s 11th inning save.
Hayes said, “It’s always great to win, and to be able to come back like we did shows we’re never out of the game, especially when you’re within three, four, five innings.”
Kevin Gorman is a writer for the Tribune-Review. You can contact Kevin via email at [email protected] or via Twitter .
