Pirates hammer hurler Hunter Greene for 6 runs in win over Reds

Before Hunter Greene could face his second batter, the Cincinnati Reds ace right-hander temporarily brought the game to a halt when he turned his back to home plate and vomited on the mound.

What followed had to make Greene feel sick again.

Bryan Reynolds hit a two-run home run that sparked the Pirates to a six-run barrage against Greene en route to a 9-5 win Tuesday night at Great American Ball Park, breaking a tie between the NL Central rivals to move into sole possession of third place in division standings.

“It was nice to get some runs in the first inning and just keep building off that throughout the game,” Reynolds said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “We needed that.”

Pirates ace Mitch Keller made his 47th consecutive start of five or more innings, allowing three earned runs on seven hits, three walks and a hit batter while striking out six in 5⅔ innings despite not having his best command. Keller (9-4) became the first Pirates pitcher since Steve Blass in 1971-72 to record nine wins before July in back-to-back seasons.

“He didn’t have his sharpest command. I don’t think the sinker was as good as we’ve seen in the past,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “This is why you see that Mitch Keller is an elite starting pitcher, because without his best stuff, he was still able to navigate through the game and give us (almost) six innings.”

The Pirates had scored only five runs in as many games against Greene (5-3) – who tossed a combined no-hitter over eight innings in a 1-0 loss on May 15, 2022 at PNC Park – but topped that total by the third inning. This time, Greene allowed seven hits and two walks with five strikeouts before being pulled after throwing 93 pitches over four innings.

Reynolds (2 for 5), Nick Gonzales (3 for 4) and Rowdy Tellez (2 for 3) all had multi-hit games as the Pirates had 10 hits for the second consecutive game against the Reds.

After Andrew McCutchen led off by drawing a full-count walk, Greene vomited with Reynolds at the plate. Reds manager David Bell, pitching coach Derek Johnson and a trainer visited the mound to check on Greene, who remained in the game only to endure a 32-pitch inning.

“Nobody really knows (what caused it), but it is a lot of liquid built up in my system,” Greene told the Associated Press. “The only way it seems to come out is by vomiting. It just sits on my chest. No one wants to go out and get sick. After that, I did a good job of getting ahead of hitters but didn’t do a good job of putting them away.”

Reynolds worked a full count before blasting a 426-foot, two-run home run over the right field fence for a 2-0 lead. It was Reynolds’ 13th homer of the season and sixth over the course of his 22-game hitting streak, the longest in the majors this season and the best by a Pirate since 2003.

“Really consistent,” Shelton said. “Every at-bat he has, it looks like he’s going to do damage.”

After Tellez drew another full-count walk, the Pirates’ 270-pound first baseman added insult by stealing second base before scoring on a two-out single to right by Nick Gonzales to make it 3-0.

The Reds responded with a scoring chance that was snuffed. Jonathan India drew a leadoff walk against Keller, stole second and advanced to third on Elly De La Cruz’s groundout to second. But Jeimer Candelario hit a bouncer to Keller, who shoveled it to catcher Yasmani Grandal, whose right foot blocked India’s left arm on his head-first slide into home plate and allowed him to make the tag.

The Pirates started the third inning with five consecutive singles, with Reynolds, Cruz and Tellez loading the bases. Edward Olivares hit a flare to right to score Reynolds and Cruz, who broke for home and slid in safe when Jake Fraley lobbed the ball to second base for a 5-0 lead. Tellez scored on Grandal’s sacrifice fly to center for a six-run advantage.

“He was watching the play, had his head on a swivel,” Shelton said. “When you have that explosiveness to be able to run the bases like that, it’s a really heads-up baseball play and it was a big play in the game.”

Keller pitched his way into – and out of – trouble in the third. Stuart Fairchild reached on Cruz’s throwing error, Keller hit India with a pitch and walked De La Cruz to load the bases, then got Candelario swinging at a 97.6-mph fastball and Spencer Steer at a sweeper outside the zone for a pair of strikeouts to end the inning.

Fraley and Santiago Espinal hit back-to-back singles, then advanced on a fly out to center to put a pair of runners in scoring position in the fourth but Keller struck out Fairchild on a sweeper to keep the Reds scoreless.

Buck Farmer replaced Greene for the fifth, when Gonzales hit a two-out single and Jared Triolo hit a 107.1-mph line drive that cleared the left field wall for his fourth homer – and first since May 4 – to give the Pirates an 8-0 lead.

Where Keller pitched seven scoreless innings in a 1-0 win over the Reds on June 19, they avoided another shutout by scoring three runs in the fifth. India led off by drawing a full-count walk, advanced to third on a double by De La Cruz and scored on Candelario’s groundout to second. Steer doubled to left to drive in De La Cruz to cut it to 8-2. Tyler Stephenson tripled to right on a fly ball that Olivares couldn’t catch at the fence, scoring Steer to trim the deficit to five runs.

“I was kind of all over the place a little bit,” said Keller, who threw 70 of his 104 pitches for strikes. “A lot more traffic than needed to be. It just comes down to executing and I was trying to do too much. I think we were trying to go for more strikeouts (instead) of weak contact. That’s something to learn from.”

The Pirates added to their lead in the sixth against Yosver Zulueta, a right-hander making his major league debut. Michael A. Taylor drew a leadoff walk, reached second on a McCutchen walk and slid past Stephenson’s tag to score on a single to left by Tellez for a 9-3 edge.

Keller was one out away from a quality start when India doubled to left and scored when De La Cruz hit a deep fly to center that bounced off Taylor’s glove for a three-base error. Carmen Mlodzinski replaced Keller, getting Candelario to fly out to end the inning on his way to pitching 2⅓ scoreless innings.

India hit a leadoff double off lefty Josh Fleming, reached third when De La Cruz beat the throw on a grounder up the middle and scored when Candelario grounded into a 6-4-3 double play to cut the Pirates’ lead to 9-5.

“We did a good job against a really good pitcher right from the get-go,” Shelton said. “Then we just continued to add on and we had really consistent at-bats throughout the night.”