- 1972 - Steve Blass scattered eight hits to defeat the Phils and win his 19th game by a 5-1 score at Veterans Stadium. Al Oliver and Manny Sanguillen had a pair of RBI, and Blass added a hit and drove in the other run. He missed his only chance for 20 victories in his final start against the Mets, when he couldn’t get through the first inning after taking a line drive off the elbow.
- 1974 - Al Oliver smacked five hits, including two homers and a double, in the Pirates’ 11-5 win at New York’s Shea Stadium. Scoops scored four times and had five RBI. Willie Stargell added four RBI with a long ball of his own as the 37 year old Juan Pizzaro, making just his second start of the year, won. That win moved the Pirates into a first place tie with St. Louis, a race that the Pirates would take down the stretch.
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| Al Oliver 1974 |
- 1991 - The Pirates took their 10th win in 12 games when they defeated the Mets in the opener of a twin bill at Shea Stadium by a 4-3 count in 15 innings. Bill Landrum, the fifth Buc pitcher, gave up a tying run in the 14th but worked a scoreless frame in the 15th for a blown save/win daily double. Lloyd McClendon singled in the 14th for the lead; pinch hitter Todd Hundley homered in the Met half to knot the score again. Don Slaught doubled home Barry Bonds in the next set of at-bats, and the Mets ran out of answers. The Bucs had plenty of opportunities to run away and hide, but went 2-for-21 with runners in scoring position. They dropped the nitecap 2-1; they went 1-for-12 with RISP in that contest.
- 1992 - The Bucs laid a 19-2 hurtin’ on the NY Mets at TRS. Andy Van Slyke went 3-for-5 with a homer, triple, four runs and two RBI. Barry Bonds doubled and went long, scoring three times and chasing home three more tallies. Lloyd McClendon added a grand slam in the first to trigger the 20-hit onslaught, featuring five 2B, two 3B and three HR. Bob Walk got the win, with Steve Cooke and Paul Wagner mopping up after him. The Mets used a position player to pitch for the first time in their history when IF Bill Pecota took the mound in the ninth.
- 2001 - During an 8-4 loss to the Cubs in their final home game of the season, the Pirates drew 25,564 to PNC Park, its first-year ballyard, and set a franchise attendance record of 2,436,139, an average of 30,000+ fans per contest. It took until 2012 to reach the 2M mark again, and the attendance record stood until 2014.
- 2011 - It took seven Bucco hurlers, but the Pirates held off the Brewers 9-8 at Miller Park, with Daniel McCutchen getting the win and Joel Hanrahan the save, his 40th. The big men with the bats were Alex Presley with a HR, 2B and 1B along with three RBI, and Pedro Alvarez, who also drove in three runs.
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| Daniel McCutchen 2010 Topps Chrome Refractor |
- 2015 - Francisco Liriano won his duel with Jason Hammel as the Bucs defeated the Chicago Cubs 4-0 at Wrigley Field. The big blow of the game was delivered by Jordy Mercer, who banged a three run homer in the fifth inning, his first long ball since early June. For the Pirates, it was the culmination of an eight game road winning streak, the first time a Bucco club had pulled off that feat since 1938. Frankie also picked up strikeout #200 of the campaign, joining Gerrit Cole (who got his 200th the night before) to become the first pair of Pirate pitchers to punch out 200 batters in the same season.
3 comments:
Daniel McCutchen wasn't bad in his only full season with the Bucs after coming over from the Yankees, and I was never clear on exactly why the team let him go. IIRC, he pitched several innings in that controversial loss to the Braves that sank the Pirates' season. That was the year they collapsed down the stretch and finished with 79 wins---the year before the three straight playoff appearances from 2013 to 2015. I think McCutchen was busted once for PEDs, so maybe that had something to do with it. Just sayin' he was a useful bullpen arm, or so it looked to me at the time.
Regarding Al Oliver, what an excellent hitter. I would say he was about as good as a player can possibly be and not quite be a Hall of Famer. But he was surely the very best of the rest and in my mind a very underrated performer.
Al was an excellent player; I remember him starting his career in CF. 18 years in the show and would consistently give ya .300-.310, 12-15 HR, 80-90 RBI and solid fielding. Maybe he just needed one category to pop instead of being Mr. Steady. McCutchen IMO was a pretty interchangeable mid-inning dude; he had no swing-and-miss pitch and was a little wild, but could eat up a couple or three innings.
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