Cole Brooms Marlins 5-2 As The Two-Out Lightning Continues

Well, Gerrit Cole is human. He gave up a pair of solo shots, one to Miami's Justin Bour in the second and the other to Christian Yelich in the seventh, leaving the game in a 2-0 hole. The Marlin's Brad Hand and Bryan Morris handed that seventh-inning lead to Mike Dunn.

The Bucs had chances a plenty, but it looked like one of those RISP-ruining afternoons was in the cards. Two outs later, the bases were empty and the Pirates looked like they were going to extend that 0-16 record when behind after six frames by another game. Then bang - two out magic in the seventh.

Stew singled. JT singled. Sam Dyson took the hill and Josh singled, scoring a run. Pedro dribbled one through the SS hole against the shift to bring home the tying run. Cutch walked. Starling Marte (yes, we had to double check that ourselves) took a 3-2 pitch down and away for a run-producing free pass. Carter Capps of the hop-off-the-rubber fame grabbed the ball and JHK drilled yet anther single, and suddenly it was 5-2.

Jung Ho is second on the team with an .836 OPS (photo via MLB.com)

Tony Watson and Mark the Shark came in to finish up the chore. For Cole, it was sevens across the board - seven innings, seven hits, seven K's and his seventh win. It was also an efficient outing as he used just 81 pitches.

AJ Burnett takes on Ian Kennedy in San Diego tomorrow night.

• It's now a nine-game hitting streak for Jung-Ho. It wasn't all roses, tho - in the fourth, JHK went down swinging at a breaking ball that hit him in the back foot.
• The gloves have been back during the current streak. The latest gem was by Starling Marte, who went over the left field fence and came back with Christian Yelich's ball, targeted for the second row.
• Today was the second straight game that Pedro singled home a run by going against the shift & banging a grounder through the shortstop hole.
• Tony Watson has tossed 15 straight scoreless appearances covering 17 innings.
• All 10 Pirate runs in the past two games have come in with two outs.
• For the Pirates, it was their second straight sweep (third of the year) and sixth win in a row after being swept in a two-game set by the Twinkies.
• The Bucs drew 33,238 today after hosting just over 41,000 in the first two games of the series; makes you wonder how many thousands they lost when the Memorial Day game was played at night for TV instead of in the day.