Spencer Horwitz hits 2 homers, 6 RBIs, as Pirates protect lead to avoid a Rockies sweep

For the third consecutive game, the Pittsburgh Pirates hit a home run in the first inning and then built a big lead against the Colorado Rockies. For the second straight day, the Rockies rallied in the sixth.

For the first time, the Pirates pulled out a win.

Spencer Horwitz had his first multi-homer game and a career-high six RBIs to boost the Pirates to a 9-5 win Sunday afternoon at Coors Field to avoid a three-game sweep against MLB’s worst team.

“It’s great,” Horwitz, who went 3 for 5 with a double and two home runs, told SportsNet Pittsburgh in an on-field postgame interview. “The guys have been swinging it well all series. Luckily, it was my day, and it was a good win.”

The Pirates (48-64) blew a nine-run lead in Friday’s 17-16 loss and a four-run lead in Saturday’s 8-5 loss, so they treated an early five-run lead precariously against the Rockies (30-81). For the series, the Pirates scored 30 runs on 34 hits, including eight home runs.

“No lead is safe. We saw that in the first two,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “Even today, they made a pretty good comeback there. Pitching did a great job holding the fort down. Really good series from the offense.”

The Pirates hit right-hander Bradley Blalock hard in the first, with four balls at exit velocities of 100-plus, including a 110.4.-mph lineout by Oneil Cruz. Horwitz hit a leadoff double off the center-field wall, advanced to third on a Bryan Reynolds groundout and scored on an infield single by Nick Gonzales for a 1-0 lead.

Tommy Pham smoked a fastball at a 110.2-mph exit velocity for his fifth homer, a two-out, two-run shot to center to give him 501 career RBIs and the Pirates a 3-0 lead.

“I got the monkey off my back, finally,” said Pham, who extended his hitting streak to 11 games. “Some of the guys kept telling me, ‘One more, one more.’ And I’m glad to get it.”

Horwitz became the Pirates’ first leadoff hitter with six RBIs in a game since Andrew McCutchen did so in a three-homer game against the Washington Nationals on Aug. 1, 2009.

Horwitz picked up where Liover Peguero left off in the leadoff spot and at first base. On Saturday, Peguero hit a leadoff home run in the first inning, the first of three on a five-RBI day. It marked the first time since RBIs became an official statistic in 1920 that any team’s leadoff hitters had back-to-back games with five or more RBIs.

“He said the leadoff spot has some homers in it here,” Horwitz said of Peguero, “so he passed the torch to me today.”

The Pirates padded their lead in the second inning, when Jared Triolo drew a two-out walk and Horwitz (3 for 5) hammered a first-pitch splitter 416 feet to right field for his fourth homer and a 5-0 lead.

“I don’t know. It might be the air up here helps,” Horwitz said. “My first career home run came here, so I have good memories here.”

That marked the third consecutive game the Pirates jumped out to a lead of at least four runs at Colorado. After Mitch Keller faced the minimum batters through the first three innings, the Rockies finally scored in the fourth. Tyler Freeman’s leadoff single skipped through the legs of Cruz in center field for an error. Freeman stole third base, then scored on Jordan Beck’s broken-bat single to center to cut it to 5-1.

But the Pirates answered by scoring three runs in the sixth. Jack Suwinski drew a one-out walk, and Triolo hit a two-out single to right to put a pair of runners on. The Rockies brought in lefty Ryan Rolison to face the left handed-hitting Horwitz, who smashed a 2-2 curveball 421 feet to right field for a three-run homer — his first in the majors against a lefty — to give the Pirates an 8-1 lead.

The Rockies responded with a four-run sixth, as Freeman drew a full-count leadoff walk, and Mickey Moniak crushed Keller’s slider 433 feet to the second deck in right field for his 17th home run to cut it to 8-3.

Although Keller drew a career-high nine whiffs on 33 pitches with his sweeper, he realized that he might have thrown it too often. Hunter Goodman made it back-to-back jacks by sending a sweeper 451 feet to left at a 112-mph exit velocity to make it 8-4. Then Beck, who hit a three-run shot Saturday, made it three consecutive homers off Keller by sending a 2-2 sweeper 381 feet to left for his 14th homer.

Suddenly, in three swings, the lead dwindled from seven runs to three.

“The first five innings were great,” said Keller (5-10), who allowed five runs on seven hits and one walk with four strikeouts in five-plus innings. “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever given up three home runs in a row. I thought the slider to Moniak was in a good spot. He just made a really good swing on it. The other two sweepers, I probably was just going to it too much. They were good pitches. The combination of them sitting on it and throwing too many of them leads to what happened.”

Carmen Mlodzinski relieved Keller and got back-to-back strikeouts before giving up a double to Thairo Estrada, then got Yanquiel Fernandez swinging. Mlodzinski had four strikeouts in two scoreless innings to bring Colorado’s momentum to a halt.

“That’s huge. I gave them all the momentum in the world back,” Keller said of Mlodzinski. “I told him when he came in, ‘The next inning, to throw up a zero was probably the biggest zero we’ve had all season, honestly.’ Momentum here is crazy. To be able to shut that down is huge. Hats off to Carmen. I think he’s player of the game, honestly.”

Rockies reliever Angel Chivilli hit Suwinski and Henry Davis with pitches, and both runners advanced on Triolo’s groundout to short. Horwitz grounded out to first to score Suwinski for his sixth RBI and a 9-5 lead.

Isaac Mattson put a pair of Rockies runners on in the eighth with an error on a Warming Bernabel grounder and a four-pitch walk of Estrada but recovered to get a pair of pop-ups to escape unscathed.

Only two days after he gave up five runs in the ninth, the Pirates turned to Dennis Santana again. He hit Freeman with a pitch, but Suwinski reached out to rob Moniak of an extra-base hit to right and Triolo made a nice glove scoop and throw to get Goodman out on a grounder to third. Santana then got Brenton Doyle to line out to left to end the game.

“It was great to see Dennis get back out there and be the guy that we know he is,” Horwitz said. “This ballpark’s crazy. No lead’s safe, we learned that. They’ve been carrying us all year. That’s the least we can do, is put up some numbers here.”