Pirates miss chance at sweep, drop series finale to NL West-leading Giants

Except for two pitches, J.T. Brubaker gave the Pittsburgh Pirates a chance to win Sunday at Oracle Park in San Francisco.

But leadoff hitter Lamonte Wade Jr. homered twice off Brubaker, Pittsburgh Pirates bat went silent and the Giants finally looked like the team with the best record in baseball (62-37) in a 6-1 victory.

The game marked the sixth time this season the Pirates (38-61) had a chance to sweep a series, but they now are 0-6 in those instances. The Pirates won the first two games of the series against the Giants, outscoring the National League West leaders 16-6.

Wade homered in his first two at-bats, blasts that traveled 429 and 400 feet. Brubaker, who has allowed 21 home runs in 18 starts, gave up only one other hit in four innings.

Brubaker struck out six and walked only one after compiling a 5.67 ERA over his previous six starts. He wasn’t totally displeased with his overall performance.

“Tip your cap to Wade. He had a day. I felt like I executed pitches all day,” Brubaker said. “I had a two-seam (fastball) for Wade that started right where I wanted it to start, and it sank instead of ran. So it ran into his bat there.

“And then the changeup was an executed pitch that he kind of dove out and got.”

Pirates manager Derek Shelton has talked about limiting Brubaker’s innings the rest of the season after he missed most of 2019 with forearm tightness, followed by a covid-shortened 2020. Brubaker already has thrown 96 1/3 innings, more than double his total in 2020.

Brubaker said he doesn’t know if Shelton will use a short leash on him for the rest of the season.

“There isn’t much of a plan that I’ve been told from here,” Brubaker said. “I don’t know how many starts. I’m just going to take the ball when I take the ball, and whenever Shelty takes it out of my hand, he takes it out of my hand and I’ll be good with that.”

So Shelton turned the game over to his bullpen in the fifth inning, and the Giants turned a 2-1 margin into an easy victory.

Duane Underwood Jr., who gave up back-to-back home runs against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday, surrendered a solo home run to Wilmer Flores in the sixth. The Giants added two more runs on a double by Steven Duggar, singles by Thairo Estrada and Curt Casali and a throwing error by catcher Jacob Stallings.

Estrada homered off Nick Mears in the eighth. All four Giants home runs were solo shots.

The Pirates wasted a good scoring opportunity in the sixth inning. After a single by Bryan Reynolds, the Giants helped with some shoddy fielding: a passed ball by Casali and an error by Estrada at shortstop. Phillip Evans walked to load the bases, but Kevin Newman, who had five hits in his previous six at-bats, grounded into a double play to end the inning.

The Pirates have a .157 team batting average with the bases loaded, the second-lowest in the National League in 40 years, according to AT&T Sportsnet.