Gonzales and Priester Struggle as Pirates Fall 9-5 to Arizona

The Pirates lost 9-5 to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Saturday, dropping the game and the series against one of their closest competitors in the National League Wild Card race.

Marco Gonzales only managed to complete 2.1 innings, allowing two homers and four runs. The Pirates’ (52-52) offense managed to overcome the early deficit, but continued struggles from their bullpen proved too much to handle in the ugly loss.

Oneil Cruz kicked off the scoring with a towering first inning homer, obliterating a first pitch fastball 472 feet to right-center. Arizona immediately answered back thanks to an RBI single from Christian Walker, then tagged Gonzales for three more runs in the second after Corbin Carroll and Ketel Marte both homered.

Dennis Santana spelled Gonzales with two on and one out in the third, striking out a pair on 11 pitches to escape the inning. He went on to strike out the side the following inning.

Pirates Come Back… Briefly

The Pirates rallied to tie things up in the fifth. Joshua Palacios and Ke’Bryan Hayes singled, then a Joey Bart double scored Palacios and put two runners in scoring position with three outs to work with. Ji-hwan Bae contributed a sacrifice fly to chip away at the lead, then Michael A. Taylor beat the throw on an infield single to second, tying things up 4-4. Taylor stutter-stepped as he tried to avoid the errant throw, turning toward second as he did so. The bobble allowed Christian Walker to tag him, stealing an out and eventually escaping the inning.

Facing a brand new ballgame, Derek Shelton brought Quinn Priester in. The 2019 first round pick loaded the bases then surrendered the lead, with Arizona pulling ahead 6-4 on a pair of sacrifice flies. Cruz tripled to begin the sixth, scoring on a groundout to pull Pittsburgh within one, but the Diamondbacks tacked on three more runs in the bottom of the inning.

The Pirates managed just one baserunner for the rest of the game, a Ke’Bryan Hayes single in the ninth that couldn’t spark a rally.