Marlins hold off Pirates rally in 10th inning to escape with a win

After committing a costly error that allowed the Miami Marlins to take the lead in the top of the 10th inning, Cal Mitchell came to bat with an opportunity to make amends.

The Pittsburgh Pirates had runners on first and third with two outs when the rookie right fielder singled to score Kevin Newman and put Ben Gamel 90 feet from home plate for the tying run.

“You do your best to forget as fast as you can,” Mitchell said. “I’m always trying to come up big, of course. So I was trying to make up for that, you could say.”

The rally ended with a whiff, as Miami Marlins reliever Jeff Brigham got Greg Allen swinging for a strikeout to escape with his first save and a 6-5 win Sunday afternoon before 15,188 at PNC Park.

The Pirates finished with a season-high 18 strikeouts, as the extra-inning drama overshadowed a strong start by Pirates right-hander Mitch Keller, who matched the best pitcher in the National League — and, perhaps, all of baseball — strikeout for strikeout for four innings.

Miami’s All-Star ace Sandy Alcantara entered the game leading all major leaguers in WAR (5.3) and innings pitched (138 1/3), and all NL pitchers in ERA (1.76), WHIP (0.904) and both hits (5.99) and walks (0.9) per nine innings.

Keller allowed three runs on five hits without a walk and seven strikeouts on 74 pitches (51 strikes) in six innings. Alcantara, by comparison, gave up two runs on two hits and three walks with 10 strikeouts on 105 pitches (70).

As much as Keller tried not to focus on the matchup, he admitted it brought out the best in him early in the game.

“It’s kind of an elephant in the room,” Keller said. “He’s a really good pitcher. I thought our guys did a really good job keeping us in the game and allow myself to keep us in the games as much as possible. There in the ninth, [we] came back. It was a great game. Just fell a little short.”

Oneil Cruz crushed Alcantara’s 99.4-mph fastball 411 feet over the Clemente Wall and into the upper right field seats for his fifth homer and a 1-0 Pirates lead in the third inning.

It was the seventh home run allowed by Alcantara this season, one that left the park at an exit velocity of 108.7 mph. It tied for the second-fastest pitch hit for a homer by a Pirate in the Statcast era (since 2015), trailing only Jordan Luplow’s homer off a 100.3-mph fastball by Miami’s Tayron Guerrero on Sept. 7, 2018.

“It was really impressive because he got it good. (Alcántara) doesn’t give up a lot of homers, and he doesn’t make a lot of mistakes,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “That’s an important thing as Oneil continues to develop is making sure guys like that, guys that have the best stuff in the game, he gets good swings off of it.”

It showed signs of growth from Cruz, who entered the game with 39 strikeouts against five walks. He watched Alcantara strike out four of the first six Pirates batters but rallied from an 0-2 count to work it even in a seven-pitch at bat before blasting the moonshot.

Keller followed by striking out the Marlins’ Nos. 2-3-4 hitters on sliders in the fourth, freezing Jesus Aguilar with a nasty pitch that broke inside for a called third strike.

Where Oneil Cruz made Alcantara appear human with a monster home run, Bryan De La Cruz cracked the code on Keller with a homer of his own. De La Cruz was waiting for the slider and smacked the first pitch he saw 387 feet to left for his seventh home run to tie the game at 1-1 in the fifth inning.

Things unraveled for Keller in the sixth, which started with hitting former teammate Stallings with a pitch. Joey Wendle followed with a single, and Miguel Rojas advanced both runners with a sacrifice. Jesus Aguilar singled to left to score both for a 3-1 Marlins lead.

The Pirates got a break in the bottom of the sixth, when Josh VanMeter drew a leadoff walk and then raced to third on a high chopper by Ke’Bryan Hayes dropped between shortstop Miguel Rojas and third baseman Willians Astudillo. Hayes stole second, putting a pair of runners in scoring position with no outs.

Ben Gamel sent a sacrifice fly to the warning track in center, scoring VanMeter to make it 3-2 and advancing Hayes to third. But Alcantara got Cal Mitchell swinging and Greg Allen on a groundout to first to leave Hayes stranded.

The Marlins added an insurance run in the top of the ninth against Duane Underwood Jr., when J.J. Bleday hit a two-out double to center and scored on a single to left by De La Cruz for a 4-2 Marlins lead.

They would need it.

Mitchell started a ninth-inning rally with a leadoff single to left, then raced to third when Allen’s grounder went through the legs of Aguilar at first base. Cruz came to bat with runners on second and third with no outs, but Anthony Bass (2-3) got him to strike out swinging.

That brought up Yoshi Tsutsugo, who was batting .172 and was 0 for 3 with a pair of strikeouts. Tsutsugo singled to right to score Mitchell and the speedy Allen, who slid past the tag of Marlins catcher Jacob Stallings for the tying run.

The Marlins took a 6-4 lead in the 10th inning, when pinch hitter Nick Fortes sliced a single down the right field line off Pirates All-Star closer David Bednar (3-4). Mitchell tried to backhand it and fumbled the ball as pinch runner Luke Williams scored the go-ahead run.

Mitchell compounded his problems by throwing behind the runner, to Michael Chavis at first. That allowed Fortes to reach second, and he scored what proved to be the game-winning run on a single to right by Miguel Rojas.

“I was running pretty hard for it and kicked it around, then made a bad-throw decision and let him get to second base,” Mitchell said. “That run ended up being the difference.”