Martin Perez celebrates birthday with quality start as Pirates beat Nationals to win series

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Martin Perez celebrated his birthday by giving the Pittsburgh Pirates the perfect present following their first loss of the season: a quality start.

The 33-year-old left-hander kept the Washington Nationals in check for 6²⁄₃ innings, striking out six and holding them to two runs as the Pirates rolled to a 7-4 win Thursday before 11,135 at Nationals Park.

“The start we needed,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “Went out and just threw strikes, went right after guys, used his stuff on both sides of the plate. Overall, that’s what a professional pitcher does. He was really efficient, did a nice job and it’s his birthday. Really good.”

The Pirates (6-1) are tied with the New York Yankees for the best record and winning percentage (.857) in baseball. After opening the season with seven road games, the Pirates will play the Baltimore Orioles at 4:12 p.m. Friday in the home opener at PNC Park. Their lone defeat came to the Nationals, 5-3, on Wednesday night.

“It’s nice to go home 6-1,” Shelton said. “I’m excited about getting to PNC because I know the crowd is going to be after it. All 26 guys on this road trip contributed, and we really did a nice job. We came out of spring training, and we talked about a full-team approach and we really saw it on this road trip.”

The start of the game was delayed by 70 minutes because of inclement weather, but it didn’t affect Perez (1-0), who was efficient in throwing strikes on 71.8% of his pitches (61 of 85). He allowed six hits and two walks while mixing his sinker and cutter with a changeup to generate 17 called strikes and eight swinging strikes.

“That’s all you need as a pitcher: You got to go up there and attack hitters, make sure what they’re looking for, see the reactions and try to move the ball,” Perez said. “Anything that you throw in the middle, they’re gonna hit you. It’s always trying to stay in the corner and trying to use all the four corners of the plate.”

Perez became the oldest Pirates pitcher to start on his birthday since Rick Rhoden did — also on his 33rd — on May 16, 1986. It had been almost 19 years since a Pirates pitcher earned a winning decision on his birthday, as Kip Wells did in a 4-2 win at Cincinnati on April 21, 2005 — his 28th birthday.

Perez had only three appearances with six or more strikeouts for the Texas Rangers last season, fanning seven against the Philadelphia Phillies on April 2 and the Colorado Rockies on May 19 and six against the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 23.

“He’s been doing it for a while, and we have confidence in him,” said Pirates designated hitter Connor Joe, who went 1 for 3 with a two-run homer and two walks. “We know, playing behind him, you’re gonna get a solid start and it’s gonna be competitive. It was today. I haven’t played with him for a long time, but playing against him, I know he’s a pro and he’s prepared. That’s all we can ask for.”

The Pirates gave Perez plenty of run support, starting with a four-run first inning. It was the sixth time in seven games they scored six or more runs and the fifth time they scored seven or more.

Nationals righty Josiah Gray (0-2), who had 10 strikeouts without allowing a walk in 6 1/3 innings in a 2-0 loss to the Pirates last Sept. 14, gave up three hits, two free passes and a pair of sacrifice flies.

Oneil Cruz hit a leadoff single to right field and advanced to third on Bryan Reynolds’ double down the left-field line. Ke’Bryan Hayes drew a full-count walk to load the bases for Jack Suwinski, whose sacrifice fly to left scored Cruz from third for a 1-0 lead.

Joe drew a walk on four brushback pitches to load the bases again. Rowdy Tellez sent a single up the middle that second base umpire Andy Fletcher had to sidestep, driving in two more runs to make it 3-0. Henry Davis added another sacrifice fly for a 4-0 lead.

It marked the first time the Pirates had multiple sacrifice flies in the first inning of a game since Andrew McCutchen and Aramis Ramirez did so back-to-back in a 9-8 win over Arizona on Aug. 18, 2015, at PNC Park.

“Gray’s a good pitcher. This guy was an All-Star last year, and we came out and got on him early and were able to get the lead, which was really important,” Shelton said. “Martin went out and threw strikes. Just a lot of people contributing, which was nice to see.”

The Pirates added another run in the second as Michael A. Taylor hit a leadoff double off the left-center wall and scored on a single up the middle by Reynolds to make it 5-0. Taylor, who won the 2019 World Series with the Nationals, went 3 for 4 on Thursday and finished the three-game series 7 for 12 in his first games here since Sept. 27, 2020.

The Nationals responded when Joey Gallo hit a leadoff double and scored on Jesse Winker’s single to cut it to 5-1.

After Suwinski drew a leadoff walk in the fifth, the Nationals turned to righty reliever Derek Law, a Seton LaSalle alum. Joe drilled a 1-1 inside curveball 400 feet to left for a two-run homer and 7-1 lead.

When Perez left a first-pitch cutter over the middle of the plate with two outs in the bottom of the fifth, CJ Abrams hammered it 415 feet for a homer to cut it to 7-2.

Shelton left Perez in to start the seventh, but he walked Vargas and gave up a two-out single to Adams before being replaced by right-hander Luis Ortiz, who got Lane Thomas to fly out to end the inning.

After Ortiz walked two batters in the eighth, the Nationals tagged him for two runs on RBI singles by Trey Lipscomb and pinch-hitter Luis Garcia Jr. to cut it to 7-4. The Pirates turned to lefty Aroldis Chapman, who struck out Jacob Young on a full-count slider to end the inning.

Two-time All-Star closer David Bednar finished the Nationals off in the ninth, striking out Thomas and Joey Meneses to earn his first save. Bednar became the fifth Pirates pitcher to get a save this season.

“It just shows that our bullpen has pitched well,” Shelton said. “I don’t think I would’ve had that in the pool if we’d done that to start, but it shows that our bullpen has been really effective.”