8/3 From 1970: Zach NL-ROTM, BB, DD POTM, Lenny Goes; El Coffee X 2, Cutch Conked, DD 1-Hitter, Game Tales; Kendall Tops, Gunner & Charley Cited; HBD Matt

• 1972 - In the 10th inning of a 1-1 game, the Cards shifted the opposite way to the National League’s top hitter, Vic Davalillo, and he answered by banging the ball up the middle to chase home Gene Alley and give the Bucs a 2-1 win at Busch Stadium. The game was a duel between eventual winner Steve Blass and the Cardinals’ Rick Wise, with Ramon Hernandez coming in to nail down the save with a 1-2-3 ninth. The first Bucco run came in the second frame when Dave Cash tripled home Willie Stargell, who had walked to open the inning, with two outs. 
• 1973 - John Morlan won his first MLB game, and it was a memorable outing as he tossed a five-hitter over seven innings to beat Steve “Lefty” Carlton and the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-1, at the Vet. Ramon Hernandez tossed the last two innings to close out the victory. Morlan got all the run support he needed from a two-run Willie Stargell homer & a solo shot by Manny Sanguillen, and the leather behind him was sharp with glovework robberies by Richie Zisk & Bob Robertson. 
• 1975 - The Bucs eked out a pair in sweeping the New York Mets in a twin bill at Three Rivers Stadium. Pittsburgh took the opener, 5-4, in 15 innings when Duffy Dyer led off the extra frame with a homer off Bob Apodaca for the walkoff win. Dave Giusti tossed five innings of two-hit relief, Al Oliver went 4-for-6, and Larry Demery, the fifth Bucco hurler, was credited with the dub. The Pirates jumped to an early lead in the nitecap and hung on for a 4-3 victory, carried by Richie Hebner’s 3-for-3 day with a double, homer and four RBI to back winner John Candelaria. 
• 1979 - The New York Yankees purchased Lenny Randle from Pittsburgh. The 31-year-old utilityman appeared in 20 games for the Bronx Bombers, which was 20 games more than he played for the Pirates. Lenny was sold the same week the Bucs got him from the San Francisco Giants as a piece of the Bill Madlock deal and he never hit the field in a Bucco uniform. 
• 1984 - OF Matt Joyce was born in Tampa, Florida. The 31-year-old, nine-year MLB vet signed with Pittsburgh for $1M as a 2016 free agent. Joyce hit .242 with 13 homers and a .403 OBP (his 21 pinch-hit walks set a MLB record) for the Pirates as a fourth outfielder/bench bat and he turned that performance into a two-year, $11M deal with Oakland. He’s now retired. 

Matt Joyce - 2016 Topps Update

• 1986 - Pirates announcer Bob Prince was posthumously awarded the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcast excellence, presented during the Hall of Fame ceremonies. Per the HoF, ”Prince's charming yet brash demeanor, clever command of the language, entertaining gift of gab and appreciation of baseball's human elements made him the consummate professional.” 
• 1987 - The Pirates were on the verge of ending a seven-game losing streak, going into the ninth inning with a 6-0 lead over the SF Giants at Three Rivers Stadium when trouble struck. Doug Drabek gave up a two-run homer and Brett Gideon gave up another homer, then walked a pair. In strolled new reliever Jim Gott, just obtained from the Giants off waivers earlier in the day (he was originally part of a trade that had to be juggled through the waiver ploy to get him to Pittsburgh), and he shut the door with the winning run at bat to close out a 6-4 win over yesterday’s team. The big Bucco blow was a three-run blast by Bobby Bonilla. 
• 1989 - A pair of unlikely offensive heroes, Rafael Belliard and Benny DiStefano, teamed up to give the Bucs an extra inning 1-0 win at TRS. With two down in the twelfth, Belliard singled through the left side off Andy McGaffigan, stole second and scored on DiStefano’s knock to left center. Bob Walk tossed eight innings of four-hit ball, but the victory went to Doug Bair. 
• 1990 - Doug Drabek, who captured the 1990 Cy Young Award, was one strike away from a no-hitter in Philadelphia when he gave up a single through the second base hole to Sil Campusano, who was hitting .188 at the time. The game was a bit lopsided; the Bucs outhit the Phils 18-1 and outscored them 11-0 at Veterans Stadium. Andy Van Slyke and Sid Bream each had a homer & double, combining for seven RBI. On the same day, Barry Bonds was named NL Player of the Month and Drabek NL Pitcher of the Month (sharing with Danny Darwin) for July, the first time since August 1978 that both winners were Pirates (Dave Parker/Kent Tekulve). Bonds hit .326 with five homers, 22 RBI, 18 runs and 14 stolen bases while Doug went 5-0/2.23 in six starts. 

Carlos Garcia - 1992 Donruss Rookie

• 1992 - The Sporting News reported that the Pirates and Los Angeles Dodgers were talking about swapping LHP Bob Ojeda and RHP Jay Howell for IF Carlos Garcia. It was a good deal for the cash-conscious Bucs to pass on; Garcia was under team control until 1996 and considered a team building block while Ojeda and Howell both were in their walk year (and both did walk) with the Dodgers. They also had a feeler out with the Angels for RHP Mark Eichhorn, who California ultimately traded to Toronto. He had two more good seasons left before injuries derailed him in 1995. The Pirates gave up their hunt and left their pitching staff intact after failing to find a deal they liked. 
• 1993 - The Bucs had brawled and lost the last two days; today they stuck to baseball instead of basebrawl and took home a 7-3 win from the Cubs at Wrigley Field. The top of the order - Carlos Garcia, Jay Bell & Lonnie Smith - combined for nine hits, five runs scored and six RBI to give Zane Smith all the support he needed against Chicago. Don Slaught chipped in three hits and Mark Dewey finished up the last two frames to give Smith his first win of the year after returning to the rotation in July (it was his fifth start) following shoulder surgery. 
• 1997 - Post Gazette Pirates beat writer Charley Feeney was presented at Cooperstown with the Baseball Writers' top honor, the 1996 JG Taylor Spink Award. Charley covered the Bucs for two decades, from 1966-86, and was TSN’s local correspondent. He chronicled two World Series winners, the death of Roberto Clemente and the 1980s drug scandal. Before he came to town, he covered the Giants, Yankees and Mets for the New York Journal American. He called everyone (even himself) “Pally” because he had such a bad memory for names. 
• 1999 - The Bucs bopped the Atlanta Braves, 7-1, at TRS. Brian Giles bombed a pair of homers accounting for four RBI while Al Martin, Kevin Young and Warren Morris added solo shots (all five homers were solo shots). Kris Benson went eight innings of four-hit ball for the win. 

Kris Benson - 1999 Skybox

• 2004 - In his ninth season, Jason Kendall set the Pirates franchise record for games caught when he donned the tools of ignorance for the 1,156th time, breaking George “Mooney” Gibson’s mark that had stood for 88 years. Kendall backstopped 1,225 games behind the dish for the Buccos before being traded during the offseason. The game itself wasn’t memorable other than for the record; Jason went 0-for-4 in a 3-2 loss to Los Angeles at Dodger Stadium. 
• 2005 - Rookie Brad “Big Country” Eldred’s two-out double in the ninth inning scored Rob Mackowiak and gave the Pirates a 9-8 walkoff win over the San Diego Padres at PNC Park. Eldred had a career-high four hits, going 4-for-4 with three doubles, three RBI and a run scored during his highlight game. The Bucs blew two-run leads twice, but behind Eldred’s stick and a Jason Bay homer, they flexed enough muscle to earn Pittsburgh’s fourth pitcher, Jose Mesa, the win. 
• 2005 - LHP Zach Duke was named the National League Rookie of the Month. He went 3-0/0.87 in five starts, holding foes to a .237 BA and three earned runs during July with 27 whiffs in 31 IP. The five July outings were the first major league contests the 22-year-old had appeared in after spending just three months at Indy. 
• 2010 - The Pirates jumped out to an early 6-0 lead and held on to beat the Cincinnati Reds, 7-6, at PNC Park. Neil Walker went 3-for-4 with four RBI while Jose Tabata had a pair of hits, two runs scored and one driven home. After Paul Maholm and Evan Meek barely kept the Bucs above water, Joel Hanrahan shut the door in the ninth with a pair of punchouts. 
• 2012 - Not only did the Pirates lose, 3-0, to Cincinnati at GABP, but Aroldis Chapman added insult to injury by drilling Andrew McCutchen with a 100 MPH heater with two outs in the ninth. It caused a furor when the Pirates didn’t retaliate the next day with James McDonald on the hill, and the head-shaking only intensified when three Bucs were hit in the last two games of the series without a Red getting buzzed, with the fans believing that the lack of response reflected a sad state of clubhouse chemistry. And the conjecture may have been right: the Pirates were 60-44 going into the game, but the loss triggered a 19-39 collapse. 

Gregory Polanco - 2021 photo Pirates

• 2021 - The Pirates were down, 4-0, after six frames and being no-hit by Milwaukee’s Adrian Houser at American Family Field. But three guys came up clutch and led the Bucs to an 8-5, 10-inning victory over the division-leading Brewers. First was Gregory Polanco, who was batting .206 coming into the game. El Coffee had two hits, two runs, two walks, two steals and the game-winning RBI to go along with the game-saving bring-back of a ball ticketed for the seats in the ninth inning to carry the game into bonus time. Rookie Hoy Park keyed the comeback in his second MLB start, doubling with the bases loaded in the seventh to chase home three runners, while All Star Bryan Reynolds, who started on the bench when given a rare rest day, pinch hit in the same inning and stayed on, driving in three runs on the night. David Bednar, Pittsburgh’s fifth twirler, went two scoreless innings for his third win in his first season as a Pirate. 
• 2022 - It was a game of big swings, with the Pirates overcoming an early four-run deficit and then blowing a late three-run lead, but at the end, Pittsburgh triumphed over division-leading Milwaukee, 8-7, ending it in the ninth when Bryan Reynolds smacked a leadoff homer, the first walk-off jack of his career. It was a day for the team core to show the way - Reynolds had three hits and scored three times while Ke’Bryan Hayes had two hits and three RBI - and for the new kids on the block to show, as Oneil Cruz cracked a two-run homer and scored twice with two raps while Tucupita Marcano collected three hits, scored once and plated a run. The wild contest at PNC was triggered by a curious front office decision to trade Jose Quintana and not call up a replacement, leaving them without a starter (or a closer; David Bednar was placed on the IL earlier in the day). The Pirates used six pitchers in a bullpen game slab rotation in a match that was ten minutes shy of lasting four hours. Wil Crowe earned the win.