Behind Spencer Horwitz's grand slam, Bailey Falter's strong start, Pirates sweep Tigers

Spencer Horwitz picked the perfect time to start swinging a hot bat, as the Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman followed back-to-back three-hit games with an even bigger feat.

Horwitz smacked his first career grand slam in the second inning, boosting the Pirates to a 6-1 win over the Detroit Tigers on Wednesday afternoon before 17,248 at PNC Park for a three-game series sweep of the team with the best record in the American League.

It was a high point of a terrific series for Horwitz, who went 7 for 12 with three extra-base hits and seven RBIs against the Tigers.

“It felt like a debut again. When you do something for the first time, it’s always exciting,” Horwitz said of a living out a daydream. “Absolutely, yeah. Whenever you were in the backyard and dream (about the) bottom of the ninth, two outs, grand slam. But I’ll take it in the second inning.”

It was an impressive ending to a sobering stretch of 15 consecutive games against American League opponents. The Pirates were swept by the Seattle Mariners, Kansas City Royals and Chicago White Sox (and lost a series at Minnesota) before turning the tables on the Tigers.

The Pirates followed a three-game sweep in which they were outscored 27-7 by the White Sox, who have the AL’s worst record, by beating the AL Central-leading Tigers by a combined 17-6 in the three games.

Pirates left-hander Bailey Falter (7-5) delivered his best start in two months. Falter threw 63 of his 87 pitches for strikes, tying a career high by striking out eight without a walk while allowing four hits and one run in seven innings against the Tigers.

“He attacked the zone. He’s going in there, and he’s dominating the strike zone with his stuff,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said. “The ability to pitch in, pitch up, consistently hit the strike zone and did a really nice job mixing in his off-speed stuff for strikes and for chase, too.”

It was the first time Falter went seven innings since a 1-0 win against Cincinnati on May 20. Falter bounced back from a rough start in Friday’s 10-1 loss to the White Sox, when he allowed three runs in the first inning and gave up two homers in four innings.

“Just trying to get back on course, honestly,” Falter said. “All these guys in the locker room have been picking me up this past month-and-a-half, two months coming up on. So it definitely felt good to go out there and do that for these guys in this locker room because they don’t take a pitch off from me. The bullpen’s been picking me up these past couple months, so it felt good to get out there, get it done for these guys.”

The game marked the major-league debut of Tigers No. 10 prospect Troy Melton, a 6-foot-4, 210-pound right-hander who surrendered six runs on seven hits and two walks with seven strikeouts.

Melton’s fastball was sitting in the high 90s, but he got hit hard from the start. Horwitz smacked a 101.4 mph line drive that was snared by shortstop Javier Baez. Andrew McCutchen followed by crushing a first-pitch fastball 411 feet to center at a 104.3 mph exit velocity for his ninth home run to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead in the first inning.

“It was awesome,” Kelly said. “To be able to get it out there, that’s tough to do. Great swing there by Cutch, especially in the first inning, to get one and put us up by one was big.”

The Pirates loaded the bases in the second, when Oneil Cruz hit a leadoff single to right, Ke’Bryan Hayes reached on a forceout and Joey Bart drew a walk. Melton struck out Isiah Kiner-Falefa, but Horwitz hammered a 1-0 cutter, driving it 416 feet with a 106.1 mph exit velocity to right-center for his first career grand slam and a 5-0 Pirates lead.

“It didn’t look like he was trying to do that. It looked like he was trying to go gap-to-gap, and the home run happened,” Kelly said. “The first two games of the series, he came up with some big base hits to score us some runs in some key situations. That one was huge for us.”

Horwitz is only the second Pirates player since at least 1900 to have a three-game stretch with at least three hits in two games and a grand slam in the other game. (The other was Andre Rodgers in May 1965, who hit a grand slam on May 23 at Milwaukee, then followed with three-hit games the next two days against Chicago).

Bryan Reynolds started the third with a double to the North Side Notch, advanced to third on a Nick Gonzales flyout to the Clemente Wall and scored on Cruz’s sacrifice fly to center to stretch the lead to 6-0.

Falter kept the Tigers scoreless through six innings before Spencer Torkelson doubled to the Notch in the seventh and scored on Matt Vierling’s single to right to cut it to 6-1.

Carmen Mlodzinski pitched the final two innings, striking out the final three batters to finish off the Tigers with a complete turnaround from one series to the next. Per Elias Sports Bureau, the Pirates became the first MLB team since the 1980 San Diego Padres to be swept by the worst team in a league in one series and sweep the best team in the next.

“When you get swept by anybody, it’s tough,” Kelly said. “I’m really proud of the way that the whole team responded after a tough first series — especially coming up against the Tigers, who are really, really good — and responding in that way.”