Phillies hit 3 homers to rally from 5-run deficit, hand Pirates 3rd consecutive loss

The Pittsburgh Pirates aren’t known as a power-hitting team but had homered in nine consecutive games, a streak that wasn’t just snapped against the Philadelphia Phillies.

It was paid back, as the Phillies rallied from a five-run deficit on the strength of three home runs.

Garrett Stubbs sparked the comeback with a three-run homer in the fourth, Edmundo Sosa added a solo shot in the fifth and Bryce Harper hit the go-ahead homer in the seventh as the Phillies pulled off a 7-6 win Wednesday night at Citizens Bank Park.

“It’s execution,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said on the AT&T SportsNet postgame show. “We have to execute. We have a 5-0 lead. We have to go after them. We just did not execute pitches.”

It was the third consecutive loss for the Pirates (74-84), who saw seven of their final nine batters go down on strikeouts. Despite getting 11 hits, including the third career four-hit game from Connor Joe, the Pirates couldn’t score a run over the final four innings.

Phillies lefty Ranger Suarez hadn’t allowed a run in 19 1/3 innings over five games against the Pirates, but they got to him early, scoring three in the first and six runs on nine hits and two walks over 4 2/3 innings.

Jared Triolo drew a leadoff walk, advanced to third on a single to right by Bryan Reynolds and scored on a single by Ke’Bryan Hayes. With runners on first and third, Joe singled to drive in Reynolds for a 2-0 lead. With runners on the corners again, Henry Davis grounded into a double play that scored Hayes for a 3-0 lead.

The Pirates stretched their lead to 5-0 in the third, when Hayes hit a two-out single to center, Joe doubled to right and Davis drove in both with a single to center.

After posting a 2.52 ERA in his last seven road starts, Johan Oviedo allowed six runs on seven hits and two walks with six strikeouts in five innings.

Oviedo gave up doubles in the first and third but didn’t allow a run until the four-run fourth, which started with a double to right by Brandon Marsh. Jake Cave rebounded from an 0-2 count to draw a walk, then Oviedo hit Johan Rojas with a pitch to load the bases. Marsh scored on Rodolfo Castro’s groundout to first, then Stubbs lined Oviedo’s 1-0 fastball 354 feet to right for a three-run home run — his first of the season — to cut it to 5-4.

“We were just really inconsistent,” Shelton said. “We walked a guy after going 0-2. We hit a guy. We have to execute pitches better than that.”

The Pirates answered in the fifth, when Joe got his third consecutive hit with a single to center and then scored when Jack Suwinski tripled to left for a 6-4 lead that knocked Suarez out of the game.

Sosa sent a 1-0 slider 362 feet to left for his 10th homer to make it a one-run game again. Harper followed with a one-out double, then scored on Cristian Pache’s single to left to tie it at 6-6. But Oviedo got Cave swinging on a slider, and catcher Endy Rodriguez threw out Pache on an attempt to steal second.

Oviedo took the defeat hard, saying he needed to pitch angry.

“I’ve got to take more responsibility, and I’ve got to take more control of the situations,” Oviedo said. “I’ve got to be more selfish and jealous about my job. I’ve got to be more mean, even if it means that it’s (toward the) people that are next to me. … I don’t care about anyone’s feelings, pretty much. I’ve got to find a way to be more mad and selfish and mean.”

After Hunter Stratton replaced Oviedo in the sixth and struck out the bottom of the order, the Pirates put on a pair of runners against Phillies rookie righty Orion Kerkering (1-0), but he got Suwinski swinging and Peguero looking at a called third strike to escape the jam.

Pirates lefty Jose Hernandez (1-3) retired the first two batters he faced in the seventh before Harper hammered a 1-1 fastball 427 feet into the Phillies bullpen in center for his 21st home run and a 7-6 lead.

“We’re talking about one of the best players on the planet,” Shelton said. “We went slider-slider, then we tried to sneak a fastball by him, and we did not sneak it by him. We tried to go up and away and we went middle-in, center cut. He doesn’t miss those.”

After Hernandez walked Marsh, the Pirates turned to Colin Selby. He walked Pache before getting Cave looking at a 2-2 sinker to end the inning, then retired the side with a pair of strikeouts in the eighth.

Gregory Soto struck out the side in the ninth for his third save.

“We did a good job early in the game,” Shelton said. “We got on Suarez. We ran the bases about as well as you can do, first and third three times in the first. Then their bullpen just shut us down from there.”