Pirates 6 - 10 Reds
Final/10
  for this game

Determined Pirates go at it again in Cincinnati

Sep 27, 2014 - 2:15 PM (SportsNetwork.com) - With just two games left in the regular season, the Pirates are assured of a second straight trip to the postseason. Still at stake is the NL Central crown or possibly a wild card home playoff game.

Pittsburgh enters this afternoon's contest in Cincinnati one game behind the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL Central. The Pirates are also two games ahead of the San Francisco Giants in the wild card standings. The Pirates beat the Giants in the season series, so if Pittsburgh stays as a wild card team, the Pirates will have home-field advantage for the one-game playoff.

Francisco Liriano is on a hot streak this month. The Pirates lefty is 4-0 with a 0.35 ERA in his first four September starts. On the other side of the coin, Liriano has never beaten the Reds. He's 0-5 with a 4.01 ERA in eight career regular season starts.

Alfredo Simon, who counters for the Reds, saw his career-high 17-inning scoreless streak snapped in the fifth frame of Sunday's 7-2 win at St. Louis. The righty is 2-0 over his last three starts. Simon is 3-4 with a 3.05 ERA in 17 games (three starts) all-time against the Pirates.

Last night, Josh Harrison set a new career-best hit streak and scored the game-winning run in the eighth inning as the Pirates rallied to a 3-1 win.

With two outs in the top of the eighth, Harrison singled to center to extend his hit streak to 14 games. Travis Snider then sliced a liner to right that spun away from a sliding Jay Bruce and rolled to the wall. The speedy Harrison scored easily from first.

Gregory Polanco pinch-ran for Snider and scored to make it 3-1 when MVP candidate Andrew McCutchen crushed a two-bagger to center. McCutchen, who won the NL MVP last season, is considered a longshot to repeat despite being one of the best hitters in the league due to the dominance of Dodgers' pitcher Clayton Kershaw.

Starling Marte extended his hitting streak to 11 games for the Pirates, who have won 17 of 21.

"I don't necessarily call it momentum, I just call it going out and getting the job done, playing the game the right way," McCutchen said.

Vance Worley gave up a run on nine hits in 6 1/3 innings, departing in the seventh after giving up a one-out single to Tucker Barnhart. Jared Hughes (7-5) came on and secured the last two outs of the inning to pick up the win.

Mike Leake struck out eight and gave up a run on three hits in seven innings of work.

"I always feel like we're going to get a great game from Mike and he was solid again today," Reds manager Bryan Price said.

The Reds have lost eight of their last 11 games. Cincinnati's bullpen fell to 0-17 since the All-Star break

Cincinnati leads the season series, 10-7.






Related News