The Miami Marlins came to PNC Park with hopes of finding playable field conditions and the chance of clinching a playoff spot in the final weekend of the season.
For seven innings, they couldn’t solve the Pittsburgh Pirates’ bullpen.
Osvaldo Bido, Hunter Stratton and Kyle Nicolas tossed two scoreless innings apiece, and lefty Ryan Borucki added 1 1/3 before the Marlins tagged Colin Selby for four runs in the eighth to take the lead.
The Marlins kept their postseason hopes alive by rallying from a three-run deficit for a 4-3 win Friday night before 16,387 at PNC Park.
Miami (83-76) entered with a half-game lead over the Chicago Cubs for the third and final NL wild-card spot, despite controversy over the field conditions at Citi Field from Tropical Storm Ophelia.
“I mean, the game was damn near scripted exactly how we had it,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “We knew we were gonna go two, two, two. I mean, we didn’t know where we were gonna get with Borucki. We had him in the lane we wanted.”
After Borucki struck out pinch hitter Xavier Edwards to start the eighth, Selby gave up back-to-back singles to Garrett Hampson and pinch hitter Luis Arraez, then walked Jorge Soler to load the bases.
Selby blamed his trouble on the lack of command of his slider.
“It’s easy to hit a fastball,” Selby said, “when you can’t throw any secondary pitches for strikes.”
Selby hung a 1-2 curveball over the middle of the plate for Josh Bell, and the former Pirates All-Star first baseman drilled a two-run double off the Clemente Wall in right to cut it to 3-2. Bell was nearly tagged out by Liover Peguero while sliding into second base, causing the Pirates to challenge the call, but it stood after video review.
When Jake Burger singled to left to score Soler to tie the score, the Pirates turned to Carmen Mlodzinski with one out and runners on the corners only for Jazz Chisholm’s sacrifice fly to center to drive in pinch runner Yuli Gurriel and give the Marlins a 4-3 lead. Mlodzinski blew an 0-2 count to walk Jon Berti and load the bases again but got Edwards to fly out to right to end the frame.
“Couldn’t even get two outs to help the team win,” Selby said. “Pitching was good up to that point. Hitters were putting together good ABs, scoring runs. I have to do my job there.”
The Marlins arrived on short rest after their game against the New York Mets on Thursday night was suspended with the Marlins leading 2-1 with two outs in the top of the ninth after a three-hour, 17-minute rain delay. That left open the possibility of playing Monday.
The Pirates (75-85) got an early lead, as Endy Rodriguez drew a full-count walk off Edward Cabrera to lead off the third inning, advanced to second on Peguero’s infield single, to third on Connor Joe’s single to right and scored on a sharp groundout to third by Ke’Bryan Hayes to make it 1-0.
Jared Triolo doubled to start the fourth, advanced to third on a groundout and scored on a single to left by Peguero for a 2-0 lead. After Joe drew a walk, Bryan Reynolds reached on a throwing error by shortstop Hampson that allowed Rodriguez to score to make it 3-0.
After being shut out by the Pirates’ first four pitchers, the Marlins flipped the script in the eighth.
“The first three or four guys pitched exactly the way we wanted to,” Shelton said. “And then they got some ground balls.”
The Marlins got the Pirates to ground out seven times over the final five innings. Joshua Palacios started the eighth with a single, but David Robertson got Rodriguez to ground into a double play and struck out Peguero. Lefty Tanner Scott then got three groundouts from the top of the Pirates’ order to earn his 11th save.
“We had some other opportunities to score,” Shelton said, “and just didn’t capitalize on it.”
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