8/4 From 1930: Sluggo Extended; 45 Zeros In A Row; 5's For Bill, 4's For KY, 3's For Arriba; Game Tales; HBD Kevin, Steve & Ruben

• 1931 - Heinie Meine started it and ended it. Pirate pitchers put together a streak of 45 consecutive scoreless innings, starting with Meine’s outing on July 27th and ending with Meine’s 7-1 loss to the Cards at Forbes Field after adding five more frames to the zero column. In between, Buc pitchers Larry French, Ray Kremer, Glenn Spencer and Erv Brame all tossed shutouts. 
• 1945 - C Bill Salkeld went 5-for-5 to become the first (and only) Pirates rookie to hit for the cycle. He drove in all five runs in the Bucs 6-5 loss to the Cardinals at Forbes Field, with the club stranding 12 runners against St. Louis. Young Bill must have been feeling his oats on this day; his triple was the first of just two that he would hit in 1,050 plate appearances during his six-year MLB career. 

Bill Salkeld - 1945-47 TSN Archives

• 1958 - Roberto Clemente’s two-out homer in the ninth off Juan Pizarro gave the Pirates a 4-3 win over the first place Milwaukee Braves at County Stadium. Clemente had three hits and scored three times to lead the attack as Roy Face saved the game for Curt Raydon. 
• 1964 - C Ruben Rodriguez was born in Cabrera, Dominican Republic. His big league stay consisted of four games, two in 1986 and two more in 1988, for the Bucs. He went 1-for-8 with a triple. The Pirates signed him as a 17-year-old and he played minor league ball from 1982-94, closing out his career in 1995 in Mexico. He became the bullpen coach for the Royals and is now a youth instructor. 
• 1967 - OF Steve Bieser was born in Perryville, Missouri. Steve played for the Mets in 1987 and got into 13 games as a Pirate in 1988, going 3-for-11 with a double. Bieser spent 13 years in pro ball, then retired to become a high school coach and later the manager at Southeast Missouri State University, his alma mater. 
• 1971 - OK, this is stretching Pittsburgh baseball history a bit, but blood is blood... Tom Walker of Dallas-Fort Worth in the Texas League pitched a 15-inning no-hitter in a 1-0 win over Albuquerque. Tom is Neil Walker’s dad, and after spending six campaigns in the show, his last pro season was with Pittsburgh’s AAA Columbus club in 1978. He retired, moved to the City, and you know the rest of the tale. 

Don Slaught - 1993 Donruss

• 1993 - C Don Slaught and the Pirates agreed on a two-year, $3.5M contract extension. In his four years as a Pirate, Sluggo had hit .314 in a platoon role. The extension carried him through his age 36 campaign. He played for two more years after the contract for three other clubs, retiring during the 1997 season. Sluggo has since been an amateur baseball instructor and is a volunteer coach at his alma mater for UCLA softball. 
• 1993 - SS Kevin Newman was born in Poway, California. A first round pick (19th overall) of the Pirates in 2015 from the U of Arizona, he was called up as a utility infielder in 2018. He hit only .209, but made the club in 2019. When SS Erik Gonzalez went down early during that season, Newman took over the starting spot and has held it ever since, although young Oneil Cruz is now knocking on the door for the position, with K-Man seeing some duty at second. 
• 1998 - Fours were wild as 1B Kevin Young went 4-for-5 with four runs scored and four RBI during a 13-5 win over the Rockies at TRS. None of the Bucs went yard, but they did bang out nine doubles off four Colorado pitchers, with Young cranking out three of them while Jason Kendall and Jose Guillen smacked a pair apiece. Jason Christiansen, the fourth of five Pirates hurlers, got the win. 
• 2006 - 23-year-old lefty Tom Gorzelanny went eight innings of two-hit ball and struck out seven as the Bucs beat the Cubs at Wrigley Field, 6-0. Xavier Nady went 4-for-5 with three doubles, two RBI and two runs. Jose Castillo and Ronny Paulino each homered, had two knocks and chased home a pair of runs. The Bucs made it easy, not only scoring freely but making a handful of glovely plays in the field, led by Nady and Chris Duffy in center field. To make it a little sweeter, Gorzo flaunted his stuff in front of his homies - he was born in nearby Evergreen Park. 

Gorzo - 2006 Upper Deck

• 2017 - The Pirates, who had dropped the series at San Diego the week before and were in the throes of losing eight-of-10, fell behind Travis Wood and the Padres, 3-0. They rallied with back-to-back two-run frames to tie the game before a bullpen implosion put them behind the eight ball again by a 6-4 count in the seventh (each team twice surrendered leads). But they had one more hurrah left, and behind a three-run pinch-hit homer by Gregory Polanco and a two-out, two-run knock by Josh Harrison rallied one more time to defeat the Friars, 10-6, at PNC Park. 32,243 were at the game, which was delayed for two hours by a passing storm, and they hung around to listen to Chicago and “Saturday in the Park” (the game began Friday night but the band didn’t get on stage until 1AM Saturday morning). David Freese also homered while AJ Schugel got the win despite facing just two batters and walking in a run.