Pirates match franchise record with 7 homers, top Mariners

With their ace, Mitch Keller, on the mound Friday night at T-Mobile Park to begin a three-game series in Seattle, the Pittsburgh Pirates probably weren’t aiming to do anything out of the ordinary offensively.

But by game’s end, having tied a modern-day franchise record with seven home runs, the Pirates (26-24) produced a win for the record books.

Defeating the Mariners, 11-6, the Pirates were propelled by home runs from Andrew McCutchen, Carlos Santana, Jack Suwinski (two), Ke’Bryan Hayes, Tucupita Marcano and Bryan Reynolds.

“Of all the games we’ve played this year, (this was) probably the best we’ve executed offensively with our approach,” manager Derek Shelton said on the AT&T SportsNet postgame show.

Keller struck out eight and walked two in six innings of work, but was roughed up for six earned runs by the Mariners, who hit two home runs of their own.

Still, Keller (6-1, 3.01 ERA) picked up his career-high sixth win.

With Milwaukee suffering a 15-1 beatdown at the hands of San Francisco on Friday, the Pirates sit a half-game out of first place in the NL Central.

The seven homers comprised nearly half of the Pirates’ 15 hits on the evening, with Reynolds collecting three hits and four RBIs. Suwinski notched three hits as well, along with three RBIs.

“It’s just feeding off each other, really,” Suwinski said. “When we’re playing together and playing as a team, one guy playing for the next guy – that’s when we play our best baseball.”

McCutchen gave the Pirates a 1-0 lead in the first inning, jacking the second pitch of the game from Mariners starter George Kirby into the left field stands.

Seattle tied things shortly thereafter, though, courtesy of Julio Rodriguez’s first-inning solo home run off Keller.

After the Mariners took a 2-1 lead, Santana hit his first home run since April 7, tying the game in the top of the fourth.

The Pirates then took a 4-2 lead when Reynolds tripled to left field, scoring Austin Hedges and McCutchen, both of whom had singled.

Later that inning, with Reynolds on third, Suwinski made the score 6-2 with a two-run homer, which chased Kirby from the game after 4 ⅔ innings of work.

“We had to attack him,” Shelton said. “We know he throws strikes. We stayed in attack mode throughout the whole game.”

In the fifth, Hayes’ third home run of the year and his first in 34 games gave the Pirates a 7-2 lead, but Seattle trimmed its deficit also in the fifth, courtesy of a two-run single off the bat of Rodriguez.

Up 7-4, Reynolds added an insurance run in the sixth, scoring Ji Hwan Bae, before Suwinski crushed his second homer of the game, followed by Marcano’s solo shot, to hand the Pirates a 10-4 lead.

The Mariners had one more response in them, with Keller being chased from the game in the bottom of the seventh, having recorded no outs after allowing a towering two-run home run to J.P. Crawford.

Keller left the game with a 10-6 lead, which was added onto in the eighth by the last home run of the evening, off the bat of Reynolds with no one on.

The total of seven homers tied the franchise record in the modern era, set Aug. 16, 1947 against St. Louis and matched Aug. 20, 2003, also against the Cardinals.

After Keller exited, Yohan Ramirez came in, pitching scoreless seventh and eighth innings, with Duane Underwood Jr. wrapping things up in the ninth.

The Pirates send Roansy Contreras (3-4, 4.50 ERA) to the mound Saturday afternoon at 4:10in Game 2 of three against the Mariners.

A win would give the Pirates their first series victory in May.