Pittsburgh Pirates Earn First Over .500 Season in 20 Years With Win
By Jason Evans
One of the best pitching matchups of the night on paper certainly lived up to the hype on the field. The Pirates earned their 82nd win and guarantee they will be over .500 for the first time since 1992 with a 1-0 win over the Texas Rangers.
When the Pirates drafted Gerrit Cole with the number one overall pick a few years ago, games like these are what the organization had in mind. Cole gave up just three hits and struck out a career high nine batters over seven strong innings of work. Yu Darvish was no slouch either, giving up the lone run while striking out six over seven.
The game was scoreless until the seventh inning when Marlon Byrd and Pedro Alvarez hit back to back doubles to break the scoreless tie. The Rangers almost scored off Cole in the sixth when Alex Rios and Elvis Andrus walked and pulled off a double steal, but Adrian Beltre would ground out to end the threat. The Pirates tried to tack on a run in the ninth. Andrew McCutchen tripled with one out, but Ian Kinsler would throw out McCutchen at the plate on a groudball by Justin Morneau.
Mark Melancon would shut the door for the Pirates in the ninth.
Game two of the series is tomorrow night at 8:05 ET/7:05 CT. Francisco Liriano and Martin Perez will duel. You can watch the game on MLB.TV, ROOT sports or Fox Sports Southwest