Bats fall silent, Pirates fail to sweep Phillies

Back-to-back wins over Philadelphia put the Pittsburgh Pirates in position for a series sweep against the visiting Phillies Sunday afternoon at PNC Park.

But pulling that off against their cross-state rival proved to be an unattainable accomplishment as the Pirates fell 6-0, snapping the longest active win streak in baseball at six.

Marco Gonzales (1-1, 2.70 ERA), making just his second appearance since mid-April after returning from an elongated stint on the injured list, lasted only four innings, and the Pirates’ bats fell largely silent.

Phillies starter Tyler Phillips delivered six scoreless innings, picking up the win in front of a sellout crowd of 38,291, the Pirates’ third straight and fifth of the year.

The Pirates (50-49) only trailed 2-0 in the seventh, but a costly fielding error by Oneil Cruz allowed Philadelphia to score three more runs, busting the game open.

The Phillies went up 1-0 in the top of the second thanks to a sacrifice fly by Weston Wilson that scored Alec Bohm, who had singled and advanced to third on an Edmundo Sosa double.

Center fielder Joshua Palacios, who in the first inning robbed Kyle Schwarber of extra bases with a leaping grab at the North Side Notch, made a sliding attempt but was unable to come down with Sosa’s hit to roughly the same location.

The Phillies took a 2-0 lead before the end of the frame, courtesy of a Garrett Stubbs RBI single that scored Sosa.

In the third, Gonzales gave up a leadoff double to Nick Castellanos but struck out Sosa and Wilson before Stubbs lined out to end the frame.

Gonzales did a decent enough job at limiting damage, considering he allowed leadoff hits in the second, third, fourth and fifth inning.

But manager Derek Shelton opted to end his afternoon with two outs in the top of the fifth after Cristian Pache and Bryce Harper singled, putting runners on the corner.

“I felt like besides one inning, we really kept them off-balance,” Gonzales said. “Just tried to fill up the strike zone. They were really aggressive so we tried to use that against them and get some early swings. Was overall happy with today, for sure.”

Gonzales allowed six hits with four strikeouts and a walk in the loss, throwing 84 pitches.

Dennis Santana took over on the hill and promptly struck out Bohm to get out of the jam, bailing out Gonzales.

Meanwhile, Phillips denied the Pirates many offensive opportunities, as did the Phillies bullpen.

“He kind of mixed and matched,” Shelton said of Phillips. “The kid’s got a good sinker and he has the ability to — he did a good job with our right-handers, getting the ball in and going off the plate and then overall mix with the sweeper and the other breaking ball.”

The Pirates advanced only one runner to second base, finishing the game with six hits.

Santana stayed on and pitched a clean sixth, but in the seventh, the Phillies scored three more runs after Cruz’s error.

With Kyle Nicolas pitching, Schwarber hit a grounder to Nick Gonzales at second that should have been a routine 4-6-3 inning-ending double play.

But Cruz, covering second base, did not cleanly transfer the ball out of his glove, preventing a throw to first.

A safe call of Stubbs at second base was overturned following a Phillies challenge, and on Nicolas’ next pitch, Trea Turner hit an RBI single into right field, putting his club ahead 3-0.

A Harper RBI groundout made it 4-0, and Bohm then collected an RBI base hit to plate Turner, giving the Phillies a 5-0 lead.

All runs were unearned off Nicolas.

In the ninth, the Phillies took a 6-0 lead when Castellanos hit a solo homer off Josh Fleming.

Philadelphia’s next batter, Sosa, then reached base on Cruz’s second fielding error of the game before Fleming ended the frame.

“The first one he just dropped,” Shelton said. “I think he just got too quick trying to get a double play to get out of the inning. That happens. The other one, it just bounced out of his glove. Cruz has played well defensively. Today he just had a tough day.”