Diego Castillo’s Four RBI Day Not Enough, Pirates Lose to Giants 7-5

The top of the sixth inning spelled disaster for the Pirates Saturday evening. With one out in the inning, Pirates’ manager Derek Shelton went to the bullpen and called on the righty Wil Crowe with a 4-3 lead.

A Thairo Estrada single and a Brandon Belt walk gave way to Brandon Crawford batting with the go-ahead run on base. Crawford singled to right field, tying the game at 4-4 with runners on the corners and no outs.

With the bases loaded, Mike Yastrzemski hit a sacrifice fly to center-field giving the Giants a 5-4 lead. The Giants held on to the lead for the rest of the game and beat the Pirates 7-5. 

Jose Quintana pitched a very serviceable game Saturday afternoon. Although the home run ball is starting to creep up, Quintana kept the Pirates in the game and even left with a lead.

Quintana didn’t induce a ton of swings and misses with just eight on the books. Out of the eight swings and misses, Quintana had six of them from his curveball (3) changeup (3). In total, Quintana used his four-seam (41%), curveball (33%), and changeup (18%) the majority of the time.

Quintana’s final line read 5.1 innings pitching, five hits, three earned runs, two walks, and five strikeouts. Quintana threw 95 pitches and had a 60% strike rate.

In the top of the first inning, the Giants gained a 1-0 lead thanks to Wilmer Flores’ eighth home run of the year.

Diego Castillo earned his 12th RBI of the year in the bottom of the first with a sacrifice fly to center-field, scoring Ke’Bryan Hayes. The Pirates tied the game 1-1.

Darin Ruff singled to left-field in the top of the third, scoring Curt Casali. The Giants then lead the Pirates 2-1.

Castillo delivered again, but this time it was a three-run home run giving the Pirates a 4-2 lead in the bottom of the third.

Austin Slater belted his fourth home run of the year for the Giants in the top of the fifth inning, cutting the Pirates’ lead to one. The scoreline read 4-3. 

Luis Gonzalez doubled in Joc Pederson in the top of the seventh, adding to the Giants’ lead. The score now read 6-4 Giants.

Daniel Vogelbach pinch-hit in the bottom of the eighth and hit a towering solo home run to pull the Pirates within one. The score read 6-5 Giants.

Crawford added salt to the wound of the Pirates doubling home an insurance run making it a 7-5 lead for the Giants.

Takeaways

Atta Boy Peggy: Even though Liover Peguero is just 21 years old and probably isn’t quite ready for the Majors, he didn’t look that out of place. The youngster registered his first hit with a 106.7 smoke shot for a single.

Rare Bad Day- Wil Crowe came into the game with an extremely solid season of work up to date. Saturday was an off day for the solid reliever, with it taking 20+ pitches for him to register just one out.