Pittsburgh Pirates defeat Philadelphia Phillies 2-1 – MLB Update
Pittsburgh Pirates put in a good performance and fought hard to defeat Philadelphia Phillies 2-1 at PNC Park, Pittsburgh on Friday, June 3.
The game that lasted for 12 innings on Friday came to its conclusive end with Jose Tabata’s game-winning single when Danys Baez was tasked with keeping the game in check.
Friday’s game was dominated by the pitchers, as both Jeff Karstens and Cole Hamels, the starting pitchers of both Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, pounded the respective teams’ offence and left it in complete disarray. Both sides exhibited some brilliant pitching,
which restricted the hitters from both teams.
"We didn't hit," Phillies’ manager Charlie Manuel said. "We need to score some runs. Hamels pitched very good. The bullpen was good. We went five innings where we didn't square a ball up. We went 15 outs and didn't hit a ball on the nose."
After the five scoreless innings where even the big hitters failed to show their hitting brilliance seemed to rise up for the first time when Chase Utley scored for the Phillies as Karstens came out to pitch in the sixth inning.
Utley singled to right to enable J. Rollins to score the first run. Karstens gave up a total of three hits in the inning, one of which was punished by Utley.
Jose Tabata was poised to do something extraordinary in the game, as he hit a sacrifice fly to centre off Hamels to level the score.
The starting pitchers had their tasks wonderfully executed. The game went on till the 12th inning when Tabata reversed the tide against the Phillies. The pitchers kept the game tight throughout.
When Daniel Moskos threw a perfect inning, disallowing any Phillies’ hitter to score, Tabata had a strong hit on Baez’s pitch. Tabata singled to right to score the game-winning run, giving the Pirates a sense of great pride, if not relief with a 2-1 victory.
The three-game series’ next encounter shall be played on Saturday at Pittsburgh where the Pirates will expectedly put every ounce of their energy to win the game and keep the series open.
It will be interesting to see how the Pirates are able to carry their winning momentum into the next game of the series. The Phillies put in a decent performance, but it was not enough to contain the Pirates’ offence and will be looking to put in a better
effort in their next game.
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