The Young Bucs Get it Done: Pirates Beat Diamondbacks 3-0, Steal Series

After several failed attempts with runners in scoring position, the Pirates’ top of the order was left shell shocked against Zac Gallen and the Arizona Diamondbacks. 

In the fifth inning, that all changed with Cal Mitchell. Mitchell leading off the inning in a 1-2 count, took a Gallen breaking ball deep to right-field. That deep ball to right resulted in a home run for Mitchell to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead.

Cal Mitchell with his first Major League home run!! pic.twitter.com/iXn5OSGPIk

— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) June 5, 2022

Not only did that give the Pirates the eventual win, but it marked the first Major League home run for Mitchell. The Pirates beat the Diamondbacks 3-0 and stole the series from the Snakes two games to one.

Zach Thompson gave the Pirates another strong performance Sunday afternoon. Coming into Sunday’s performance, Thompson has posted a 2.05 ERA, with 23 strikeouts and eight batters walked. Quite the impressive performance from Thompson.

Sunday afternoon, Thompson induced just eight swings and misses, but it was his curveball that kept the hitters off-balance. Out of his eight swings and misses, Thompson got the Diamondbacks whiffing four times off the breaker. Thompson had quite the pitch distribution as well, using the cutter (30%), sinker (25%), and the curveball (23%). 

Thompson’s final line read five innings pitched, four hits, zero earned runs, two walks, and four strikeouts. Thompson threw 84 pitches with roughly a 67% strike rate.

In the sixth, Diego Castillo hit a deep sac-fly to center-field, scoring Jack Suwinski. The Pirates increased their lead 2-0 over the Diamondbacks.

In the seventh, Ke’Bryan Hayes delivers a bloop single to left-field, scoring Tyler Heineman. The Pirates made it 3-0 over the Diamondbacks. 

Takeaways

Young Bucs- Although the top of the order for the Pirates had a rough day, Mitchell, Suwinski, Castillo, and Marcano had solid games. All four Pirates combined to go 6-12 with two RBIs, two walks, and three extra-base hits.

Thompson Magic- Thompson picked back up where he left off with May. Thompson held batters to a .211 batting average in May with an OPS of .602. Thompson pitched a four-hit shutout in five innings in his first start in June. A rather impressive start to a month, I’d say.

SuWINski- After a walk-off dinger Saturday afternoon, Suwinski followed up his performance of Sunday with back-to-back doubles and went 3-4. Suwinski is continuing to show he belongs in the Majors.