SAN FRANCISCO -- It maybe wasn’t as aesthetic as some of their other wins, but after what they’ve been through this season, the Pittsburgh Pirates are in no shape to be choosy.
Manager Don Kelly’s ballclub now has a chance to do what it’s been most successful at over the month: Win on the road.
A 13-3 win over the San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park on Saturday evened the three-game set at one game apiece and opened the door for the Pirates to grab a series victory in the finale on Sunday.
“I thought we had really good at-bats early on and continued throughout the game, going the other way and doing the things that we needed to do to score runs,” Kelly said. “All night I thought we had good at-bats.”
In doing so, the Pirates put themselves in position to do something that they haven’t done in more than a decade.
Pittsburgh has won four consecutive series on the road against National League teams. The last time the Pirates did that five times was in 2015 when they won each of their final five series on the road.
They also continued their long string of success against the Giants. The Pirates joined the Los Angeles Dodgers as the only NL teams to have winning records at Oracle Park since the waterfront ballpark opened in 2000.
There was plenty of credit to go around for Saturday’s win.
Starting pitcher Braxton Ashcraft was brilliant over seven innings. He allowed one run on six hits with six strikeouts to lower his ERA to 2.77. It was the seventh time Ashcraft has allowed two or fewer earned runs this season, tied for second most in the Majors.
“I take pride in the fact that I throw a lot of strikes,” Ashcraft said. “That’s a big thing, getting guys out of the box early, not letting an at-bat extend.
“I was in the bullpen last year and I know how taxing that can be. As a staff, entirely, we’ve done a really good job of doing our job. Starting pitching going deep in games, it takes a lot of weight off the bullpen.”
Former Giant Joey Bart led Pittsburgh’s offense with four hits and two RBIs. Nick Gonzales also had four hits, while Oneil Cruz had three.
Bart’s big day came ironically as the Giants were trying to sort through their own catching issues. Prior to Saturday’s game San Francisco traded away longtime starter Patrick Bailey, leaving their catching duties in the hands of two younger players.
Bart was once thought to be the Giants’ catcher of the future. Now with the Pirates, he’s getting more comfortable with each day, and it’s showing.
As a collective, the Pirates banged out a season-high 20 hits. Every starter in the lineup had at least one hit, while seven players drove in at least one run. Pittsburgh had runners on base in six of the first seven innings and did just enough before blowing the game open late.
The Pirates stranded five runners in the first four innings before breaking through for two runs in the fifth. Brandon Lowe had a sacrifice fly to drive in Bart, then Bryan Reynolds added an RBI single to make it 2-0.
Ashcraft (2-2) gave up Bryce Eldridge’s first career home run in the bottom of the fifth, then had to pitch out of another jam in the sixth.
Pittsburgh led 4-1 before blowing the game wide open with six runs in the seventh. In that inning, the Pirates had six hits and benefited from one error and an infield hit that could have also been ruled an error.
After Ashcraft left, Evan Sisk pitched a clean eighth and Cam Sanders worked the ninth to complete the win.
“We’ve been a super resilient team all year,” said Bart, who was the Giants’ first-round pick (No. 2 overall) in 2018. “We’ve lost big games, then came back the next day and do what we did today.”