Josh Palacios has career-high 5 RBIs to win battle of brothers as Pirates pound Cardinals

Joshua Palacios had his parents sitting together in the stands at PNC Park, united by their sons playing in the same major league game for the first time but divided by their choice of colors.

Where Richard Palacios wore a powder blue St. Louis Cardinals jersey in honor of one son, Richie, his wife Lianne wore a gold Pittsburgh Pirates City Connect jersey to represent their other son.

The one who triumphantly announced that he’s the big brother.

Joshua Palacios screamed those words into the television camera from the home dugout after crushing a three-run home run that sailed over the right field seats in the fourth inning, the exclamation point on the Pirates’ 11-1 win Monday night before 12,270 at PNC Park.

“That was definitely going through my mind, was, ‘I am the big brother. Don’t forget it,’” said Joshua Palacios, who estimated that he had about four dozen family members and friends in attendance. “And I’ve got my cousins and everybody in the stands, so I knew they would enjoy that one. Before the game, they said, ‘Oh, he better not show you up, kid. I don’t know, you can’t come back home.’ So I had to put on a show for them.”

Joshua Palacios won the first round in the battle for bragging rights between the Brooklyn-born brothers, adding a two-run double in the eighth for a career-high five RBIs.

It marked only the third time in franchise history that a Pirates player homered in a game in which his brother played for the opposing team, per Elias Sports Bureau. The other two both involved the Alou brothers, as Matty homered against Felipe and the San Francisco Giants on May 25, 1966 and Felipe and the Atlanta Braves on May 12, 1967.

Related

• 'It saved us a ton': Lefty Bailey Falter pitches 6 innings in relief to earn 1st win with Pirates
• 'Wish I could be helping my team': Pirates rookie Henry Davis 'frustrated' by thumb injury
• Pirates promoting No. 1 overall pick Paul Skenes to Double-A Altoona

“I’ll definitely remember that forever,” Joshua Palacios said. “Today was definitely like a bucket-list thing. My brother and I have always wanted to play against each other in the show, and it’s a blessing that it could happen.”

The Palacios brothers faced each other earlier this season in the minor leagues, when Joshua was playing for the Pirates’ Triple-A affiliate in Indianapolis and Richie for the Cardinals’ affiliate in Memphis.

“We’ve played against each other once or twice, actually, believe it or not,” Joshua Palacios said. “It was a little bit of an age gap, because I played up one year. But then we got to play against each other in the minors this year, and this is the first time in the big leagues. I still can’t believe it. It’s pretty crazy.”

Palacios was hardly alone, as the Pirates pounded out 16 hits, including seven doubles. Connor Joe led the way with three doubles in reaching base five times and scoring four runs, becoming only the eighth Pirates player in the modern era (since 1900) to have three or more doubles and score four or more runs in a single game.

“Whenever Josh does something great, the energy he brings is electric and contagious,” Joe said. “It’s always so fun to watch him play, no matter what. He’s been grinding a little bit. His energy was still great.”

The Pirates used an opener in right-handed reliever Thomas Hatch, who got out of a first-inning jam. Tyler O’Neill hit a bloop double that dropped inside the left field line in front of a sliding Bryan Reynolds and Paul Goldschmidt reached on a catcher’s interference by Rodriguez before Hatch got Nolan Arenado to ground into a 5-4-3 double play.

Reynolds doubled off the right-center wall, advanced to third when Joe reached on an error by second baseman Jose Fermin when Goldschmidt couldn’t catch the one-hop throw at first and scored when Rodriguez beat out an infield grounder to third.

Joe, who went from first to third on Rodriguez’s single, scored on a wild pitch by Cardinals left-handed starter Drew Rom to give the Pirates a 2-0 lead. Rom walked Joshua Palacios and Liover Peguero to load the bases with two outs, but Jack Suwinski went down looking at a called third strike to end the rally.

Hatch got out of another scoring threat in the second inning by getting Fermin and Masyn Winn to fly out with two runners on base before retiring the Cardinals in order in the third.

The Pirates increased their lead to 4-0 in the bottom of the third when they loaded the bases and Peguero hit a two-run bloop single down the right field line.

Ke’Bryan Hayes led off the fourth with a double off the right-center wall and scored on Joe’s double to the North Side Notch to stretch the Pirates’ lead to 5-0. Rodriguez worked a walk and Palacios crushed a 2-1 fastball over the middle 397 feet and over the right field seats for a three-run homer and 8-0 lead.

“We just did a lot of little things right tonight throughout the entire game,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “Probably the biggest at-bat of the night was we had a situation where Connor picked us up with two outs and hit the double, and that kinda just helped keep the ball rolling.”

Andrew Knizner broke up the shutout by driving Bailey Falter’s 1-1 slider 416 feet to left for a leadoff home run to cut it to 8-1 in the fifth. It was the only run allowed by Falter (1-7), who struck out eight over the final six innings to earn his first victory of the season.

The Pirates scored three more runs in the eighth, when Joe’s leadoff double was followed by a Rodriguez single and a two-run double by Palacios. Alika Williams drove in Palacios with a double to give the Pirates a double-digit lead.

The Palacios’ big night continued in the ninth inning, when the younger brother got in on the action. The Cardinals had Richie Palacios pinch-hit for Willson Contreras, and he got a leadoff single down the third base line only to be stranded when Joshua Palacios made a diving catch to rob Fermin of an extra-base hit to end the game.

“Really happy for Josh,” Joe said. “Of course he caps it off with that catch. That’s his style.”

For Joshua Palacios, the emphatic ending capped a game he counts as the best of his major league career. It even topped the heroics of his 28th birthday, when he hit a two-run walk-off home run in the bottom of the 10th inning for a 6-4 win over the Philadelphia Phillies on July 30 at PNC Park.

“I think the birthday game was really special to me, but I think today was more special to my parents with my family there,” Palacios said. “So I put this No. 1 because my parents definitely deserve this day.”