Nationals pound 15 hits to beat Pirates, end their 5-game road winning streak

The red-hot Pittsburgh Pirates went into Sunday seeking a sweep, only to have the Washington Nationals rain on their road trip.

After a 2-hour, 26-minute rain delay, the Nationals pounded 15 hits to roll to a 7-2 win Sunday afternoon in Washington, D.C.

The Pirates had won 10 of their past 11 games, including a seven-game winning streak. They also had five consecutive road wins, including a doubleheader sweep Saturday to clinch a three-game series win.

The NL-leading Pirates (20-9) are off Monday, then visit the AL-leading Tampa Bay Rays (23-6) in a matchup of the teams with the best records in baseball. The Rays also are coming off a brutal loss Sunday, giving up seven runs, including an Andrew Vaughn three-run, walk-off homer, in a 12-9 defeat at the Chicago White Sox.

“We’re talking about the best team in baseball. We’re going to have to go in there and play well,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said on the AT&T SportsNet postgame show. “I think our guys embrace everything. They really do a good job. We just played a good Dodger team. We played a good Astros team. We’ve played some good teams. We’re going into Tampa, and we need to play good baseball.”

Where Nationals right-hander Josiah Gray (2-4) held the Pirates to one run on three hits and three walks in six innings, striking out six on 105 pitches, Pirates righty Johan Oviedo (2-2) gave up seven runs on nine hits and two walks in 2¹⁄₃ innings.

“He executed. He threw strikes,” Shelton said of Gray. “The fastball is sneaky. He’s got that low release, got a little ride to it. Once he got the lead, he went right at people.”

Led by designated hitter Josey Meneses (4 for 5), the Nationals had four players with multi-hit games as the 15 hits matched their combined total from the doubleheader and was the most against the Pirates this season.

Shelton said Oviedo looked like he didn’t have a good feel for the ball but refused to blame his poor outing on the rain delay. Instead, Shelton said it was Oviedo’s inability to execute pitches, especially the breaking ball, when the Nationals had two outs in the first and second innings.

“He just left some breaking balls up,” Shelton said. “We had the opportunity to get out at least two of those innings and gave up two-out hits. We just can’t do that and expect to win games.”

The Nationals got to Oviedo with two outs in the first inning, when Kiebert Ruiz and Meneses hit back-to-back singles then scored on Jeimer Candelario’s double to the left-center gap for a 2-0 lead.

In the second, Luis Garcia added a two-out, two-run single and Meneses drove him in with a single to center as the Nationals increased their lead to 5-0.

Ji Hwan Bae singled to start the third, stole second and advanced to third on a Ke’Bryan Hayes fielder’s choice, then scored on a Bryan Reynolds single to right to cut it to 5-1.

Gray threw 33 pitches in the third inning, when he walked Miguel Andujar and Carlos Santana to load the bases for Jack Suwinski, who hit his first grand slam in the sixth inning of the 16-1 win in the second game of Saturday’s doubleheader.

This time, Suwinski was robbed of an extra-base hit when Dominic Smith stopped his screamer down the first-base line and flipped it to Gray in time to beat Suwinski to the bag for the third out.

“That was kind of the difference in the game,” Shelton said. “If that ball is a foot or two one way or the other, we’re at least at 7-3, maybe 7-4 and we run his pitch count up even more because he threw over 30 pitches in that inning.”

The Nationals chased Oviedo after he gave up three hits in the third, including a two-run double by Victor Robles for a 7-1 lead. The Pirates got 5 ²⁄₃ scoreless innings of relief from Dauri Moreta, Jose Hernandez, Yohan Ramirez and Duane Underwood Jr.

The Pirates cut it to 7-2 in the ninth when Connor Joe hit a one-out double to left, then scored on Tucupita Marcano’s single to center. The Pirates finished April with 20 wins, their best start since 1992.

“I’ve said it time and time again: We’re resilient. We play hard. We’ve had really good pitching,” Shelton said. “Our bullpen was good — we went six scoreless. I think there’s a lot of things we’ve done well. We’ve caught the baseball. We’ve executed. We just have to continue to do that as May starts.”