7/30 From 1970: Ladies Day; 1st Place; Streaks Snapper; Game Stories; HBD Josh

• 1975 - The Pirates had to delay the start of the game at TRS by 18 minutes to let the Ladies’ Day promotion crowd of 43,260 get to their seats. It was worth the wait as the Bucs pounced on the Phils’ Steve Carlton on the way to an 8-1 win. Jerry Reuss went the distance, as Manny Sanguillen had a big day, going 5-for-5 with a homer. Al Oliver (HR, 2B), Willie Stargell (2B) and Dave Parker (2B) each had two-hit days. There were 21 hits banged out between the clubs, but the game still took just 2:25 to play.

Josh Bonifay - 2002 Bowman's Best

• 1978 - IF Josh Bonifay was born in Macon, Georgia. The son of Bucco GM Cam Bonifay, the Pirates drafted Josh in 1999. He had a long and successful minor league career, mainly at Altoona. He hung up the spikes after the 2007 season and became a coach in the Pirates system. In 2011, he moved to the Houston organization and now is with Texas.
• 2002 - Pittsburgh snapped a six game losing streak with a 4-1 win over the Colorado Rockies at PNC Park. The Bucs broke open a pitching duel between Kris Benson and the Rox’s Denny Neagle in the eighth, scoring three times with two outs. The rally was keyed by Adam Hyzdu’s two-run double. Mike Williams earned the save of Benson’s win.
• 2006 - Pittsburgh concluded a five game winning streak by taking a 2-1, 10-inning victory from the SF Giants at PNC Park. Jose Castillo’s leadoff homer in the ninth forced the game into extras, and Jose Hernandez’s single in the 10th scored Jack Wilson with the tie breaker. Both starters, Zach Duke and Matt Morris, put up zeroes but were gone before the seventh was done, and it took 11 more pitchers to finish up what they had begun.
• 2013 - The Pirates swept a doubleheader from the Cards by 2-1 and 6-0 scores at PNC Park to vault over them into first place in the NL Central. The opener went 11 innings, with the winning run scoring after Alex Presley’s apparent DP ball deflected off pitcher Kevin Siegrist’s glove and into left field to plate Russ Martin. Vin Mazzaro got the win. The key blow in the nitecap was Andrew McCutchen’s two-run homer that bounced off Matt Holliday’s glove and into the second row of seats in left. Rookie Brandon Cumpton went seven frames for the win, tossing three-hit ball. C Tony Sanchez took his MLB bow behind the dish and became one of seven Pirates to call a shutout in his first game; the last was Jason Kendall in 1996.

Tony Sanchez - 2013 Quarry

• 2014 - The San Francisco Giants broke a six game losing streak largely thanks to a DP via a walk. The Pirates, who had won three in a row, led 5-4 in the sixth when Chris Stewart drew a one-out walk with runners on second and third. Giant hurler Jean Machi got the ball back from the catcher and noticed Travis Snider had wandered off second base, apparently thinking it was a bases-loaded walk (he later admitted that was the case). Machi picked him off, and Gaby Sanchez, who was at third, was caught in the backwash and picked off, too. The Bucs went on to lose 7-5 at AT&T Park, wasting long balls by Josh Harrison and Jordy Mercer.
• 2017 - The Pirates were in a four-game losing streak that had dropped them from 2-½ to 5-½ games off the NL Central lead when a pair of the Bucs big dogs, Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole, got off the leash. Cutch was up five times; he homered three of them and walked the other two while Cole Train tossed seven innings of one-run ball with eight whiffs as the Pirates took a much-needed 7-1 win from the San Diego Padres at Petco Park. They were helped along by Josh Bell who banged a pinch-hit dinger and Jose Osuna who drilled a two-run triple.