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Pirates Discussion: Pirates Sweep the Reds

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The Pittsburgh Pirates head into their final off day on Thursday, before six games in six days with the St. Louis Cardinals to end the season.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds for the seventh time in a row, and their second straight sweep of the Reds.

Bryse Wilson pitched a phenomenal game that was highlighted by a supposedly new splitter. Sites like Baseball Savant are calling it a changeup, but since he threw eight shutout innings I decided we’ll give Wilson — or more so the broadcast team who emphasized the pitch and that he’d been working on it — the benefit of the doubt and call it a splitter. Wilson threw 61 of his 90 pitches for strikes, with 26 being sinkers and 24 splitters (labeled as changeups). Bryse had six strike outs to one walk and all three hits he gave up were to Reds rookie Jose Barrero.

The Pirates had a 3-0 lead when Wilson left the game after eight innings. Miguel Andujar went 2-for-4 on the day with a RBI double in the first inning for a 1-0 lead. In the second inning with bases loaded and one out, Oneil Cruz crushed a ball off the RF wall to score two runs and 3-0 lead.

It seemed it was going to end up being a quiet finish from there until Chase De Jong came out for the ninth inning. Things got ugly quickly as a Kyle Farmer two-run HR and then a Jake Fraley solo HR tied the game at three before De Jong even got an out. The game would end up going into extras after the Pirates came up empty handed in the bottom of the ninth.

Yohan Ramirez pitched the 10th and had a short appearance, setting the Reds down in order on only six pitches.

In the bottom half the Pirates had runners on first and second with two outs when Kevin Newman stepped to the plate and dropped a 2-2 pitch into short center to give the Pirates a 4-3 walk-off win in extras.

The Pirates are now only one game behind the Reds, before heading into a home and home series with the Cardinals to finish off the season.

Bucs'N'Pucks (Jeff Reed)
Bucs'N'Pucks (Jeff Reed)
Raised in Cranberry Twp, PA, Jeff attended Kent State University and worked in Cleveland and Pittsburgh, before moving to New Orleans in September of 2012. His background is as an Engineering Designer, but he has always had a near unhealthy passion for Pittsburgh sports. Hockey and Baseball are his 1A and 1B, combined with his mathematical background, it's led to Jeff's desire in diving into analytics. Jeff is known as Bucs'N'Pucks in the comments, and began writing for Pirates Prospects in 2022 after contributing so many useful bits of information in the comment section.

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