Homers by Daniel Vogelbach, Jack Suwinski boost Pirates past Yankees

Jameson Taillon was pitching in Pittsburgh for the first time since April 2019, when the former No. 2 overall pick still played for the Pirates and before he was sidelined by his second Tommy John surgery.

Taillon didn’t allow a walk against his former team.

Maybe he should have.

Facing full counts, Taillon surrendered home runs to Daniel Vogelbach and Jack Suwinski as the Pirates rolled to a 5-2 win over the New York Yankees on Tuesday night before a sellout crowd of 37,733 at PNC Park.

“We made ‘Jamo’ bring the ball to the middle of the plate,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “And, as effective as he’s been this year, I think part of the game plan was making sure we could grind through some at-bats and get it to the point where we were gonna force him to throw strikes. We knew that was a situation where we’re gonna be able to take our best swings.”

It was the first meeting between the teams since April 21-23, 2017, when the Pirates took two of three games in the interleague series. They used the occasion to give fans a bobblehead honoring 1960 World Series hero Bill Mazeroski, who threw out the ceremonial first pitch. The Pirates visit the Yankees for a two-game series on Sept. 20-21.

The Yankees entered with the best record in baseball (58-22), thanks in part to a pitching staff that features former Pirates in Taillon, Gerrit Cole and closer Clay Holmes and a lineup that leads the majors in home runs, runs scored, RBIs and walks.

The Pirates got a pair of big defensive plays and solid pitching from left-hander Jose Quintana, who allowed one run on six hits without a walk while striking out seven on 96 pitches (60 strikes) over five innings. Quintana credited his confidence in his pitches and catcher Michael Perez for calling a good game behind the plate.

“We put the best we have on the plate, and it worked really good,” Quintana said. “I’m really happy with this W. I needed it. The team needed it. It’s huge for us, especially when we face teams like that.”

Taillon, the No. 2 overall pick in 2010, said he reminisced about his time with the Pirates while walking across one of the bridges to PNC Park. He pitched before a sellout crowd at PNC Park for the first time since the 2018 home opener. The Pirates even played his walk-out song, Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks” while a tribute video played on the Jumbotron.

Taillon nearly matched Quintana’s pitch count, throwing 61 of his 94 pitches for strikes without a walk but gave up five runs on six hits in 5 1/3 innings. It was the fifth consecutive game he didn’t last six innings, and he blamed it on the four-seam fastball he threw 29 times.

“I didn’t have the best fastball I had all year, that’s for sure. That would have been nice to have in my back pocket,” Taillon said. “I can look at where I want my four-seam to be, where I’m missing. I can look at different sides of the plate, where the slug is coming from. Peel it all back and see what we got. It just comes down to execution when it really counts.”

After Taillon retired the Pirates in order in a 15-pitch first inning, Vogelbach led off the second by driving a 3-2 fastball 392 feet and over the Clemente Wall in right field for his 11th home run and a 1-0 lead.

“He’s obviously got really good stuff. He throws four pitches for strikes so I tried not to chase him around and get him over the plate,” Vogelbach said of Taillon, who threw his four-seamer, changeup, curveball and cutter at least 17 times each. “I feel like I got a pitch on 3-2. Against a guy like that, you don’t get many pitches. You try to do what you can when he makes a mistake.”

The Yankees threatened to score in the third. DJ LeMahieu reached on a grounder that shortstop Oneil Cruz backhanded but made a one-hop throw that skipped past the glove of first baseman Yoshi Tsutsugo. Gleyber Torres hit a two-out double to left to put runners on second and third for Giancarlo Stanton, who hit a line drive to center only for Bryan Reynolds to make a diving catch to end the inning.

The Pirates homered again on a 3-2 pitch, this time a two-run shot on a Taillon changeup that Jack Suwinski sent 401 feet to straightaway center for his 14th home run and a 3-0 lead in the fourth. It marked the 18th Pirates homer on a full count this season, which ranks second in baseball behind only the Atlanta Braves (21).

“It just goes to that two-strike approach a little bit,” Suwinski said. “I’m just trying to stay a little more direct to the ball and just be a little less movement, just trying to shrink the zone and put more balls in play.”

In his first game back from the injured list after missing more than a month with a hamstring strain, Ben Gamel hit a two-out double to center to score Cruz for a 4-0 lead.

The Yankees scored in the fifth, when Isiah Kiner-Falefa doubled to the left field corner and scored on Aaron Judge’s two-out missile down the third base line. Quintana got Torres to line out to third to end the inning.

Pirates increased their lead to 5-1 in the sixth inning when Suwinski hit a leadoff single and scored on a sacrifice fly to left by Cruz in a lefty-on-lefty matchup that Vogelbach called “one of the best at-bats of the night.”

Wil Crowe was tested in the seventh, when Kiner-Falefa singled with one out and LeMahieu followed by drawing a four-pitch walk. That brought Aaron Judge, who leads MLB with 29 home runs, to bat amid M-V-P chants with a chance to cut the deficit to one. Crowe fed Judge a mix of sliders and sinkers before getting him to ground into a 4-6-3 double play to escape the jam unscathed.

“I give credit to Wil,” Shelton said. “To execute the pitch and to get a guy that arguably is the MVP of the American League to ground out, that’s a huge moment for us right there.”

The Yankees cut it to 5-2 when Duane Underwood Jr. faced the heart of the order in the eighth. Torres walked, reached second on a wild pitch, advanced to third on Stanton’s groundout and scored on a single by Matt Carpenter. Underwood threw another wild pitch to allow Carpenter to move into scoring position but struck out Aaron Hicks.

The Pirates turned to closer David Bednar in the ninth. He gave up a one-out single to Kiner-Falefa, who broke up a double-play ball with a slide into Diego Castillo at second. That brought Judge to bat. With the sellout crowd on its feet, Bednar got Judge looking at a called third strike to record his 13th save.

“That was a pretty cool atmosphere,” Shelton said. “Our fans came after it. I think I’ve told you guys, I’ve waited a long time for ‘Renegade,’ to be played with a packed house, so that was pretty sick. I give our fans a ton of credit, man. They were into it.”