This story was originally published by Dead Spin
Lourdes Gurriel Jr. had three hits and scored the tiebreaking run on a wild pitch to help the Arizona Diamondbacks notch a 4-3 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates on Friday night at Phoenix.
Joe Pederson homered and Eugenio Suarez had two hits to help Arizona win for the ninth time in the past 12 games.
Joshua Palacios had a two-run single for Pittsburgh, which fell for just the fourth time in its past 14 games. Andrew McCutchen drove in one run and scored another for the Pirates, who were just 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position.
Pittsburgh’s Oneill Cruz lined a two-out single to center in the ninth before Paul Sewald struck out Nick Gonzales for his 16th save to wrap it up for the Diamondbacks.
Arizona starter Zac Gallen (8-5) gave up three runs and five hits in six-plus innings. He struck out six and walked three.
Gallen walked the first two batters in the seventh before being replaced by Kevin Ginkel, who retired three straight batters, two on strikeouts. Ryan Thompson allowed two baserunners in the eighth before working out of the jam.
Arizona pushed across three runs in the sixth inning to move into the lead.
Pederson led off the inning with a 453-foot homer to right center off Pittsburgh starter Luis Ortiz. The blast was Pederson’s 15th of the season.
Christian Walker then walked, ending Ortiz’s night. Carmen Mlodzinski (2-4) entered and allowed a single to left to Gurriel and a run-scoring single to right to Gabriel Moreno to knot the score at 3.
After Suarez lined into a double play, Mlodzinski bounced a slider to Alex Thomas, and Gurriel scored from third on the wild pitch to give Arizona a 4-3 edge.
Ortiz was charged with three runs and five hits over five-plus innings. He struck out four and walked three.
The Pirates scored three runs in the first two innings against Gallen, the Arizona ace.
Pittsburgh loaded the bases with one out in the first before Palacios delivered a two-run single to right to score McCutchen and Gonzales.
In the second, Joey Bart led off with a single and scored from first on McCutchen’s double to center with one out.
Arizona scored its first run in the bottom of the third when Corbin Carroll tripled to right to start the inning and Ketel Marte followed with a sacrifice fly to left.
–Field Level Media
