The Diamondbacks defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates 9-5 at Chase Field to pick up a huge series win over their competition in the Wild Card race. Arizona pounded out 13 hits, five of them coming from center fielder Jake McCarthy. McCarthy became the third Diamondback to have five singles in five plate appearances, joining Craig Counsell and Junior Spivey.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Following the game, McCarthy spoke with Dbacks TV reporter Todd Walsh and analyst Mark Grace about his five-hit game.
“It’s just nice when they go through,” said McCarthy. “I try to have good at-bats, a few of those hits were with two strikes, just not trying to chase. The approach is pretty consistent every night, it’s nice when they fall, they find holes.”
“He’s been really consistent all year long,” said Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo on the postgame coverage on Dbacks TV. “It’s been that of year for him where he’s toggling between approaches and hitting in counts, he understands what the at-bat is asking for. He’s having a terrific year. It’s fun for us to watch because he’s working his butt off.”
The game followed a ceremony that inducted Randy Johnson and Luis Gonzalez as the first two inductees into the Diamondbacks Hall of Fame. With a big crowd of over 36,000 fans in the house honoring two of the greatest players to put on an Arizona uniform.
The Pirates tried to crash the party, as Oneil Cruz crushed a 472-foot homer off Brandon Pfaadt in the top of the first. However, the right-hander settled in, retiring the next 11 hitters as his teammates got to work on left-hander Marco Gonzales. In Answerbacks fashion, they cashed in on a leadoff walk to Ketel Marte on a Christian Walker base hit to tie the game at 1-1.
In the second, a pair of home runs gave Arizona a 4-1 lead. Corbin Carroll got a center-cut changeup from Gonzales and hit it out to right. Geraldo Perdomo singled on a ground ball just inside the bag at first, advancing to second on a couple of poor throws from the Pirates. Ketel Marte then got a cutter over the heart of the plate and crushed a 415-foot opposite-field home run to pad the lead.
With the Diamondbacks holding a big lead early, it looked like the game was headed for blowout territory, but the Pirates fought their way back in the game. Josh Palacios ended Pfaadt’s streak of consecutive batters retired, which seemed to knock the right-hander out of rhythm. The big hit for Pittsburgh came off the bat of Joey Bart, who smoked a line drive to left that Lourdes Gurriel Jr. misplayed for a double, then a couple of productive outs tied the score.
Even though Pittsburgh was back in the game, the Diamondbacks once again answered. They loaded the bases with no outs on a single, hit batter, and a walk against Quinn Priester, then took a 6-4 lead on sacrifice flies by Perdomo and Marte. The Pirates scratched a run in the fifth when Cruz scalded a ball just out of McCarthy’s reach in center field for a triple. That made it a 6-5 game, which was as close as the game got. Joc Pederson came off the bench, hitting a triple in the right field corner to plate two runs and scored on McCarthy’s fourth hit of the night.
Even though Pfaadt stumbled to the finish line, it was six innings on a great day for the offense. The final line doesn’t look great, with five earned runs allowed in six innings, but the offense picked him up.
“The line score did not indicate what he did today,” said Lovullo. “There was the one inning where he gave up three runs, it threw everything off. But he kept us in the game, we won the baseball game, turned it over to the bullpen.”
The bullpen closed out the game, with scoreless innings from Justin Martinez, the newly-acquired A.J. Puk, and Bryce Jarvis, securing their eighth series win out of their last nine. Since the start of June, they are 30-18 and rolling towards a postseason appearance with just half a game out of the final Wild Card spot.
Next Game
The Diamondbacks go for the series sweep of the Pirates. Right-hander Yilber DÃaz (1-1, 5.40 ERA) squares off against right-hander Mitch Keller (10-5, 3.34 ERA), with first pitch at Chase Field scheduled for 1:10 P.M. MST.
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Michael McDermott covers the Arizona Diamondbacks, Arizona Cardinals, and more for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on X via @MichaelMcDMLB
