Late double play provides 'a little nail in the coffin' after fluky hit

Good teams always seem to find a way to overcome miscues or fluky plays the way Oneil Cruz, Luis Ortiz and the Pirates did Saturday night at PNC Park.

The offense was coming off a two-run sixth inning that featured a run-scoring hit by Cruz and Ortiz was dealing through six scoreless innings against the team with baseball's best record. But when J.T. Realmuto led off the seventh by reaching on a cheap liner that Cruz initially misjudged and couldn't get a glove on with a leaping attempt, it appeared as if the Phillies could be on the verge of answering back.

Instead of letting things spiral after having thrown 80-plus pitches and limiting the visitors to just two hits in his first six innings, Ortiz stepped back on the rubber, worked his way into a 1-1 count and got Bryson Stott to roll over a sinker on the inner third. A grounder was played smoothly by Nick Gonzales at second base, Cruz eagerly took his quick throw for the first out and delivered a strike to Connor Joe at first to complete a 4-6-3 double play that quickly wiped out Realmuto's hit and allowed the Pirates to right the ship en route to a 4-1 win over the Phillies that secured a series victory and extended their season-best win streak to six games. 

"It definitely helps (Ortiz's) situation and we as defenders have to give him that chance to turn that double play and help him out," Cruz said via interpreter and major-league coach Stephen Morales. "And you know, at the same time, it put him in a good spot to not make that many pitches during that inning." 

"Just a little nail in the coffin there," Gonzales said. "He had been pitching so well and did pitch so well the whole game. Just a cheap little base hit, those happen, but to be able to help him out and for him to be able to execute and give us a ground ball was huge."

Cruz, Gonzales and company were thrilled to be able to come through for Ortiz, who surrendered three hits with two walks and two strikeouts across a season-high seven scoreless innings. He threw just 17 pitches in his final two innings, capping things off with the crucial double play, a flyout to center field for the final out and a much-deserved ovation from the sellout crowd on the North Shore: 

"Obviously, it feels good to go out there and throw seven scoreless, but it's just an inning by inning thing that I've prepared my mind for," Ortiz said via Morales. "To go out there every inning, first pitch to be aggressive and attack the strike zone. The results are there." 

Ortiz, who ultimately threw 59 of 89 pitches for strikes, has now allowed just two earned runs while holding opposing hitters to a .174 batting average in 24 2/3 innings through four starts this season. Dating back to his final start of the 2023 season, Ortiz has thrown five-plus innings and allowed four or fewer hits in five consecutive starts, matching the second-longest such streak in franchise history. The only longer streak was six by Francisco Liriano from July 17-Aug. 14, 2014.

“Pretty much everything (was clicking). To get seven shutout innings against that lineup, you pretty much have to execute pitches -- and he executed all of them probably about as well as we’ve seen him," Derek Shelton said. "He’s been good over this stretch the whole year but since he’s moved to the rotation. He had everything going. He kept one of the best offenses in baseball off-balance.”

As for Cruz, he had no issues redeeming himself after coming up short in his attempt to keep Realmuto off the bases in the seventh. He collected his third straight multi-hit game and three of the Pirates' four runs came in to score off of his hits, including one on this sixth-inning double...

... and two more that came across on this two-run, eighth-inning homer off the bat at 112 mph:

More important, both big hits came off left-handers in starter Cristopher Sanchez and reliever Matt Strahm. Cruz is batting .288 against right-handed pitchers and .163 against lefties this season, but has worked hard to improve those splits. 

"Just being able to go into the cage, put some work in against the machine and all that," Cruz said. "The coaching staff, the hitting department and some of the players that have been in the game like Grandal who has faced a lot of lefties or seen lefties before. The advice they give me." 

Andrew McCutchen sparked the offense with a homer of his own in the sixth inning, while Ke'Bryan Hayes and Bryan Reynolds each matched Cruz with two-hit performances. Hayes now has multi-hit showings in four of his last five games and Reynolds has recorded multiple hits in four straight games. Reynolds' 11 total hits in that four-game span are the most by any Pirates player in a four-game stretch since Starling Marte had 13 hits from Sept. 21-24, 2015.