Where Did That Come From?! Pirates Spend Weekend Steamrolling Mets

PITTSBURGH – The Pittsburgh Pirates have been far from perfect this season, but they got about as close as can be in their weekend series with the New York Mets. 

The Pirates routed the Mets 12-1 on Sunday afternoon to cap off a dominant series sweep at PNC Park. 

“It always feels good to win a series against any team. But when it’s a sweep, it feels really good,” a smiling Oneil Cruz said through coach/interpreter Stephen Morales. 

The Pirates beat the Mets 9-1 on Friday night, won 9-2 on Saturday and set a season-high in runs in Sunday’s win. 

“The message just was to right away play with energy to start the series and we were able to feed off of it after that first night and just keep going,” Ke’Bryan Hayes said

The pitching that has been the bright spot for the Pirates for much of the season was exceptional. They held a Mets’ lineup that consists of some serious star power in Juan Soto, Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso to four runs over the weekend.

Mitch Keller finally notched his second win of the season in the first game of the series. The bullpen carried the load with 7.1-scoreless innings after a rain delay on Saturday. It was a team effort between starter Mike Burrows, lefty reliever Génesis Cabrera and right-hander Carmen Mlodzinski in the series finale.

“You can’t ask for much more,” Burrows said on the pitching staff. “That’s a great series from our pitchers. Everybody did what they needed to do and executed. It was a great series.”

But it was the offense that was the main story for the Pirates.

The Pirates’ lineup has fallen flat for the majority of the season and is statistically one of the worst in the league. But at least for a weekend, they looked more like The Lumber Co. of the 1970s. 

The Pirates totaled 30 runs over the weekend on 40 hits. As a team, they hit .374 (40 for 107) and hit four home runs in Sunday’s win, which marked a season-high.

“We’ve been talking about the lineup, lengthening it out, having good at-bats throughout. I think today was another good example of that,” manager Don Kelly said following Sunday’s win. “Passing that baton, moving the lineup down and we mixed in some home runs too, some doubles. The guys are sticking to the approach, staying within and doing a great job offensively.” 

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Pittsburgh’s +26 run differential was tied for its fourth-best in a three-game series in club history and the biggest differential since outscoring the Chicago Cubs by 29 runs in 1975. 

The series sweep was the Pirates’ second of the season. Pittsburgh swept the Philadelphia Phillies at PNC Park earlier this month, but even that wasn’t nearly the same. 

In that series, the Pirates notched three straight one-run wins for the start of a season-high four game winning streak. Those were gutsy wins by the Pirates. These were beatdowns. 

New York is no slouch either. Though they’ve hit a rough patch over the last couple weeks, the Mets entered the series leading the National League East with a 48-34 record.

This easily could have been viewed as a “get right” series for the Mets, facing a team buried in the National League Central. Instead, the Pirates sent them on a very unhappy flight back to New York. 

In the grand scheme of things, a three-game sweep doesn’t mean much for the 35-50 Pirates, but it’s hard to ignore how good the team looked, even if it was only for a weekend. 

“Anytime you can just blow teams out, especially at this level, I mean, it’s hard enough to get wins, but whenever you’re able to do it like that and everyone’s getting hits, everyone’s throwing well,” said Hayes. “It feels good as a team.”