Corbin, Abrams Lead Nationals Over Pirates 6-2 (66-78)

9/11/23- By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on Twitter

Good teams find ways to win and bad teams find ways to lose. The past few years of rebuilding, the Pirates have consistently been in the latter category. But this season, we’ve seen flashes of a team that may actually be playing meaningful fall games in the not-too-distant future. Tonight, for the most part, was not one of those days.

Andre Jackson made his 8th appearance with the Pirates and 5th start on the year and, while he was able to retire the first six batters he faced, he was giving up hard contact indicating it likely wouldn’t last.

After failing to turn a double play earlier in the 3rd inning, Jackson allowed a 2-out, 2-run home run to CJ Abrams off a high, hanging changeup. Bryan Reynolds answered in the bottom frame with a 2-out single up the middle driving in Jared Triolo to score the Pirates first run.

Jackson’s struggles continued in the 4th as a double by Keibert Ruiz and a single by Joey Meneses got the run right back. Nationals added on after Jackson walked Travis Blankenhorn and Ildemaro Vargas to load the bases before a soft grounder by Luis Garcia scored another.

Hunter Stratton relieved Jackson and pitched clean 5th (which included a nice defensive assist from Connor Joe) but allowed a solo moonshot home run from Dominic Smith into the center field bushes.

Cody Bolton took over in the 7th and gave up the 2nd home run of the game to Abrams – a line drive that just cleared the Clemente Wall and gave the Nationals a late 6-1 lead.

Miguel Andujar led off the bottom of the 7th with a double to right and Ji-hwan Bae doubled him home to get the Bucs another run but Patrick Corbin was in complete control the entire game, rolling for 6.2 innings of 5-hit, 2-run ball, walking just 1 batter while striking out 8. Jordan Weems took over in the 7th and pitched a clean 8th as well while Jose Ferrer finished up in the 9th.

In total, the Pirates hitters struck out 10 times with just 7 hits and 2 walks over the game. All this against a team coming in with one of the worst ERAs in the National League (4.99 – only above the Colorado Rockies at 5.70) and indicating that this team still has a long way to go before October means more than just watching the games on TV.

News & Notes

• With his 3rd inning single, Reynolds stretched his hit streak to 12 games.
• Jackson’s final line of 4 innings, 4 hits, 4 runs, 2 walks and just 1 strikeout. Nine batted balls against him had an exit velocity of 95+ MPH. 
• Over his career vs the Pirates, Corbin is 6-3 with an ERA of 3.04 over 91.2 innings.
• Today was the final scheduled Monday game of the season for the Pirates. Weather permitting, they will finish with a 10-7 record for Monday games this year.
• Pirates will look to take game 2 tomorrow night as Bailey Falter goes for the Bucs against Washington’s Joan Adon. First pitch scheduled for 6:35PM. Let’s Go Bucs!