Pirates get home runs from Jack Suwinski, Ke'Bryan Hayes to rally, beat Brewers

The cutter that made Corbin Burnes a Cy Young winner was the best Pittsburgh Pirates manager Derek Shelton had seen it in four years, until the Milwaukee Brewers ace left a pair of them over the plate.

Jack Suwinski and Ke’Bryan Hayes hit the cutter for home runs to boost the Pirates to a 4-2 comeback win over the NL Central first-place Brewers on Monday night before 10,831 at PNC Park.

The Pirates got a scare when designated hitter Andrew McCutchen pulled up between second and third base on Connor Joe’s lineout to center in the fifth inning, then limped off the field with assistance from trainers and was removed from the game.

McCutchen was examined and treated by the team’s medical staff, said it was a precautionary move and pronounced himself as “fine.”

McCutchen remains stuck at 299 career homers, one shy of becoming the 13th active player to reach the 300-home run plateau with 24 games remaining this season. The 36-year-old, a five-time All-Star and 2013 NL MVP, already surpassed several milestones with 2,000 hits, 1,000 walks and 400 doubles in his 15-year career.

“We obviously don’t want to lose him,” Suwinski said. “We want him to finish the year and hit that milestone. It will be awesome when it happens. He’ll be good, battle through it. He’s a competitor.”

Shelton was impressed with Burnes’ cutter, which touched 97 mph and gave the appearance of a hard slider with its straight drop before Suwinski and Hayes homered and Bryan Reynolds and McCutchen hit back-to-back doubles.

“I mean, this guy has won a Cy Young, you’ve got to give him a lot of credit,” Shelton said. “Then Jack got a ball up, Key got a ball up 3-2 and then Bryan and Cutch had good at-bats. So, I think overall we continued to grind him. I think at the end of five he was at (92 pitches). With a young lineup, that’s impressive against a guy of his stature.”

Hayes, who also tripled off the Clemente Wall in the seventh, made three key defensive plays: Catching Carlos Santana’s 100.7-mph liner in the third, leaning over the railing in the home dugout to catch Santana’s pop fly in the fifth and turning a 5-6-3 double play to end the top of the sixth.

“We get spoiled watching him because he does things every night that most human beings don’t do,” Shelton said. “I think we started it in St. Louis, but the Gold Glove campaign for me should have started long ago because this guy is so good I think we get spoiled in Pittsburgh watching him because we just expect every ball hit, he’s going to catch.”

The Brewers took a 2-0 lead in the second inning, when Pirates starter Luis Ortiz walked Sal Frelick and Willy Adames and hit Mark Canha with a pitch to load the bases then gave up back-to-back sacrifice flies to Victor Caratini and Brice Turang.

Shelton said Ortiz was getting out too fast in his delivery, changing his arm angles and causing his pitches to scatter, and credited mound visits from Pirates pitching coach Oscar Marin and catcher Endy Rodriguez for getting Ortiz back on track. Ortiz (4-4) said he took a step off the mound and a deep breath, all part of his reset technique, and got back in control.

“Endy knows me well and he knows which button to push when it needs to be pushed,” Ortiz said through interpreter Stephen Morales. “He knows the type of pitcher that I am, and that plays an important part of pushing me to do better.”

Ortiz delivered a quality start by giving up two runs on five hits and three walks with four strikeouts in six innings. It was his second consecutive strong start, after allowing one run on three hits and two walks with five strikeouts in a 6-3 win on Aug. 29 at Kansas City.

“They scored the first two runs without a hit and then he gave up the infield single,” Shelton said, “but to be able to bounce back against the best team in our division and execute throughout that lineup, especially with some of the left-handers there, it was very impressive and it’s a really encouraging sign.”

The Pirates stranded runners in scoring position in each of the next two innings. In the second, Rodriguez doubled to center when Frelick couldn’t catch a deep fly but Burnes struck out Liover Peguero.

Alfonso Rivas led off the third by hitting a short chopper down the third base line but reached when Andruw Monasterio’s throw skipped past Santana at first base. Rivas turned toward second but Turang backed up the play and tried to throw him out at first. Turang’s errant throw allowed Rivas to reach second, and he advanced to third on a wild pitch. But Burnes recovered by getting Ji Hwan Bae to ground out to third, then striking out Hayes and Reynolds to escape.

That changed in the fourth inning, when McCutchen led off with a line drive double to the warning track in left field and tagged to third on Joe’s flyout to right. Suwinski smacked an 0-1 cutter 410 feet to center for his 23rd home run to tie the game.

“That one I was just trying to get him up and out a little bit, just knowing what that pitch can do,” Suwinski said. “You obviously could tell I got fooled a handful of times (striking out swinging) in that first and third at-bats. Being able to get one in that spot where I was looking, especially with Cutch on third and not trying to do too much. I just got that pitch right there and put a good swing on it.”

Hayes crushed a full-count cutter 427 feet to center with two outs in the fifth for his 12th homer to give the Pirates a 3-2 lead. Reynolds followed with a double down the right field line and scored on McCutchen’s double down the third-base line to make it 4-2.

Carmen Mlodzinski replaced Ortiz in the seventh and walked Christian Yelich and gave up a liner up the middle to Contreras but struck out Santana on a full-count cutter to strand both runners. Colin Holderman retired the side in order in the eighth and David Bednar in the ninth to earn his 32nd save of the season.

It was the Pirates’ sixth win in their last seven games.

“It’s awesome,” Suwinski said. “We’ve had some pretty good games recently, just playing good ball and not letting the opponent dictate what kind of game we’re going to play. We play hard and we’re going to do what we do. I thought we did a pretty good job of that.”