Pirates return favor, comeback to beat Padres 4-2

One night after blowing a lead to the San Diego Padres, the Pittsburgh Pirates returned the favor. Ke’Bryan Hayes hit a huge three-run, ninth-inning homer, and five Bucs pitchers combined to give up 10 hits, but just two runs in a 4-2 come from behind Pittsburgh victory.

But it was Hayes’ first home run of the year that was the big story in the top of the ninth. Hayes hit a towering shot to center off of San Diego closer Taylor Rogers with two on and one out for his third hit of the game. He finished the night 3-for-5 with three RBIs as the only multi-hit Pirate. It was just Rogers’ second blown save in 19 tries.

Hayes also spoke with AT&T Sports following the game:

On the mound, JT Brubaker had another solid start, going the Shelton Five and scattering six hits and an unearned run with two walks and three strikeouts. His ERA is down to 4.15 on the year after a rough start to the season.

Dillon Peters gave up the second Padres run in the seventh on an RBI single to Trent Grisham, but Chris Stratton and Anthony Banda combined on one and two-thirds inning of scoreless ball to set up David Bednar, who pitched a perfect ninth for his ninth save of the year. Banda snagged the win.

Another big Bucco highlight was this snag from Ben Gamel, which made Brubaker extremely happy.

The Buccos have the rubber match today in San Diego and then travel to Los Angeles to take on the Dodgers, a team they took the series from earlier this month. The Bucs have been playing very well against some of the league’s top teams (and bad against the bad ones), so we’ll see if that continues on this west coast trip.