9/26 From 1970: Key, Cutch Carry On; RISP Woes; Booth Re-upped; Fanfest; Gems & Game Tales; HBD Jordan, Archie, Daniel & Yurendell

• 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, during 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 37-year-old Juan Pizzaro, making just his second start of the year, won. It was his only W of the season and was the 131st & final victory of Juan’s 18-year career. That win moved the Pirates into a first place tie with St. Louis, a race that the Pirates would take by 1-1/2 games by winning 6-of-7 contests in the season’s final days. 

Yurendell DeCaster - 2006 Topps Rookie

• 1979 - IF Yurendell deCaster was born in Brievengat, Curacao. deCaster became Bucco property in 2000 when he was taken from the Twins in the minor league draft. He made it to AAA Indianapolis, spending most of 2005-07 with the Indians. He got his MLB cup of coffee in 2006, getting into three Pirates games and going 0-for-2, fanning twice. Yurendell was part of the Nats and Yankees farm system before moving on to the indie, Nicaraguan, Mexican and Netherland Leagues along with playing for three WBC Netherland teams (Curacao is part of the Netherland Antilles). 
• 1982 - RHP Daniel McCutchen was born in McKinney, Texas. He came to Pittsburgh in 2008 as part of the Xavier Nady/Damaso Marte deal with the NYY. Daniel worked from 2009-12 for the Pirates, seeing most of his action in 2011 with 73 of his 108 Bucco appearances and going 8-11/4.77 overall. He got a cup of coffee with Texas in 2014 and his last pro campaign was in 2016. 
• 1988 - RHP Chris Archer was born in Raleigh, North Carolina. The two-time All-Star for Tampa was the Pirates big addition at the 2018 deadline, coming over for a prize prospect package of OF Austin Meadows, RHP Tyler Glasnow and a PTBNL (RHP Shane Baz). He was a risk; in seven years, he’d only won more than 10 games once, but the Bucs hoped to tap into his potential and wipe-out slider. Arch was pretty much a bust in the ‘Burg, with two visits to the IL in 2019 and then thoracic outlet surgery in 2020, costing him his final contract season. Archie got into just 33 games as a Pirate with a line of 6-12/4.92. He returned to Tampa Bay as a FA in 2021 where injuries continued to plague him. 
• 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. 

AVS - 1992 Triple Play

• 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 2Bs, two 3Bs and three HRs. 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; he was the victim of AVS’ long ball, though it was the only hit he surrendered during his inning on the hill. 
• 1993 - OF Jordan Luplow was born in Visalia, California. He was drafted by the Pirates in the third round of the 2014 draft out of Fresno State, and made his Bucco debut in 2017. Luplow yo-yo’ed between Indy and the big club again in 2018, finally given a steady chance to show his stuff in September after Gregory Polanco was injured and lost for the last weeks of the campaign. He was sent to Cleveland as part of the Erik Gonzalez deal during the ‘18 offseason and is now with Tampa Bay. 
• 1993 - It was a good day to end some bad mojo. For the first time since September of 1990, the Pirates swept a twin bill, winning by 5-1 and 1-0 tallies against the Cubs at TRS. Paul Wagner won the opener by tossing five-hit ball over eight innings before Mark Dewey finished up. The key blow was Jeff King’s eighth-inning bases loaded, bases-clearing double. The lidlifter saw another long streak come to an end when Jerry Goff homered for the Bucs, his first long ball in since August of 1990. The second game was all Tim Wakefield, who made a first inning run hold up by going the distance with another five-hitter. It also ended a long, dark stretch for him, too - it was the first start he won since April 27th; he had gone 13 starts without a victory. 
• 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. 

PNC Park - photo Pgh Pirates

• 2003 - The Pirates announced that they had renewed the contracts of their broadcast team - Lanny Frattare, Greg Brown, Bob Walk and Steve Blass - who had already been together for the past 10 years. The extensions were for three years, with Lanny being the senior member with 28 years behind the mic. Steverino had 21 years in the booth, with Brownie and Walkie being the pups with a decade under their belts. 
• 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. 
• 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. 
• 2017 - The Pirates and Orioles were counting down the days until the season ended, but Andrew McCutchen wasn’t going quietly into that good night. He went 4-for-4 with two homers, a double, eight RBI and four runs scored to complement Trevor Williams and Steven Brault’s pitching as the Bucs prevailed 10-1 at PNC Park. Cutch was the first Pirate with at least four runs and eight RBI in a game since Ralph Kiner in 1950, with the deed first done by Johnny Rizzo in 1939. Andrew’s eight runs chased home was a feat that hasn't been done by a Buc since Jason Bay in 2004 (Rizzo had nine, Bay drove in eight twice and Kiner & Dave Robertson each did it once). Cutch also hopped over Al "Scoops" Oliver and Max Carey for 11th in all-time Bucco RBIs w/724 (Dave "The Cobra" Parker is 10th w/758; Andrew never caught up, being traded to the Giants in the off season). Trevor struck out six, making the 2017 staff one of four in Pirates history (and the first since 1984) to feature five pitchers with at least 115 K (Gerrit Cole-196, Chad Kuhl-142, Ivan Nova-131, Jameson Taillon-125 and Williams-117.) 

Ke'Bryan Hayes - image Pgh Pirates

• 2020 - With a game left in an otherwise dismal season, Ke’Bryan Hayes banged out five hits, including three doubles and three runs scored, in an 8-0 walloping of the Cleveland Indians at Progressive Field. Hayes became the first Pirates rookie to have five hits in five plate appearances since Neil Walker in 2010. Colin Moran homered and had four RBI while Bryan Reynolds and Jose Osuna also went deep. Joe Musgrove started the whitewash, giving up three hits in seven innings before Dovy Neverauskas and Nick Tropeano finished up.