Pirates snap streak of not scoring more than 4 runs but are beaten by Brewers

Just when it appeared that neither Mother Nature nor the baseball gods could prevent the Pittsburgh Pirates from setting a major league record of dubious distinction Thursday night, they finally caught a break.

The Pirates hadn’t scored more than four runs in 26 games when a one-hour, 50-minute rain delay stopped the game against the Milwaukee Brewers in the bottom of the sixth inning.

One chance to snap the streak came when the game resumed, as the Pirates had runners on first and third with two outs – only for Bryan Reynolds to strike out. Reynolds got another chance with two on in the ninth and drilled an RBI double off the center field wall.

Then Andrew McCutchen scored from third on a Spencer Horwitz groundout, pushing a fifth run past the plate for the first time since April 22. It wasn’t enough to beat the Milwaukee Brewers, who got two home runs from Christian Yelich in an 8-5 win Thursday night before 10,114 at PNC Park.

But it stopped the streak, nonetheless.

“Honestly, five’s not the goal. We want to keep on going and score more than that,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said. “I’m sure there was some awareness of it, but it wasn’t talked about. We weren’t going in there trying to score five. I guess, in a sense, glad it’s over. But it wasn’t something we were really talking about or striving to do. We want to go out there and score more than five.”

The Pirates remain tied with the 1969 California Angels, 1906 and 1931 Boston Braves and 1918-19 Boston Nationals for the longest streak of not scoring more than four runs in a game.

The defeat and weather put a damper on the first major league start for Pirates right-hander Mike Burrows, who was recalled from Triple-A Indianapolis on Wednesday to take Carmen Mlodzinski’s spot in the rotation. Burrows gave up three of his four runs in the first inning, and allowed four hits and two walks with three strikeouts over five innings.

“I think the Brewers are pretty aggressive on his heater and didn’t miss on those swings,” Kelly said. “After the way it started, easy to give in there, but he showed that mentality and really what he showed down in Triple-A he brought it up here and settled down and finished those last three innings strong.”

Burrows struck out the first batter he faced, Brice Turang, but Jackson Chourio drew a full-count walk and William Contreras singled to right field. Christian Yelich sent an 0-1 fastball 356 feet to the left field corner, where it sailed past a leaping Tommy Pham at the fence for a three-run home run.

“I felt good, I just got behind in a couple of counts,” Burrows said. “The walk hurt, the base hit I wasn’t concerned about and then the ball I thought I beat Yelich with what ended up being a backside ball that just cleared the wall in left. Not much you could do about that.”

The Pirates answered in the bottom of the first, when they loaded the bases on a Cruz leadoff walk, an McCutchen single to right and Reynolds was hit by a pitch. Joey Bart hit a sharp grounder down the third base line to score Cruz to cut it to 3-1, but Caleb Durbin stepped on the bag and fired to first to turn a double play.

Joey Ortiz hit a two-out solo homer off Burrows in the second inning to increase Milwaukee’s lead to 4-1. Horwitz homered for the first time as a Pirate, sending Aaron Civale’s full-count cutter 409 feet to center field to lead off the fourth and cut it to 4-2.

The Pirates loaded the bases again with two outs in the fifth, when Reynolds drew a walk and Bart and Horwitz hit back-to-back singles but Ke’Bryan Hayes popped out to short to end the inning.

Yelich hit his second homer in the sixth, this time taking Isaac Mattson deep by driving a 1-1 changeup 415 feet to right-center to give the Brewers a 5-2 lead.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa hit a bouncer that ricocheted off Durbin’s glove for a double with two outs in the sixth, then scored on a Cruz double to the left-center fence to cut it to 5-3. Cruz then advanced to third on a wild pitch as McCutchen drew another walk. But Carlos Rodriguez got Reynolds to chase a fastball above the zone, and he went down swinging on a foul tip to end the scoring threat.

“It’s a tough situation for Reynolds, coming out of that rain delay,” Pirates second baseman Adam Frazier said. “We had momentum going in and the rain came. You sit around for a couple hours and lose that a bit. That’s a tough at-bat there.”

The Brewers added three more runs in the eighth off Chase Shugart, as Isaac Collins singled to score Jackson Chourio and Sal Frelick drove in two runs with a single to right for an 8-3 lead.

Cruz and McCutchen led off the ninth with walks. Reynolds doubled to drive in Cruz and advance McCutchen to third. The Brewers brought in closer Trevor Megill, who got Bart looking at a called third strike and Horwitz to hit a grounder to the hole that scored McCutchen to snap the streak. Hayes lined out to second to end the game.

“We’re putting ourselves in position to score, so we’re in that game all the way until the end,” Frazier said. “I guess it’s good to not be in the record books, but we want to win the game.”