Spencer Horwitz homers twice as Pirates post pair of 4-run innings to beat Braves

Mitch Keller rarely got run support to start the season, so it proved poetic that his final start would be the one where the Pittsburgh Pirates finally came through with a big inning.

Sparked by Spencer Horwitz — who went 3 for 3 with two home runs, two walks, three runs scored and four RBIs — the Pirates poured it on for a 9-3 win over the Atlanta Braves on Friday night at Truist Park.

Dating to last year, when he was playing for the Toronto Blue Jays, Horwitz is 9 for 11 with five homers and nine RBIs over four games at Atlanta. In 2024, he homered twice against the Braves on Sept. 7 and once more the following day.

“I really don’t know. Something about it is clicking. Maybe the box. Maybe it’s the visuals,” Horwitz said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “I’m really not sure but I’m going to keep trying to ride the wave, for sure.”

Horwitz is batting .328/.451/.655 with 11 extra-base hits and 12 RBIs in September, posting his second three-hit game in a three-game span after going 3 for 5 with two doubles and three RBIs Wednesday at Cincinnati.

“I try to be the complete hitter that I’ve always emulated: Control the zone, doing damage when you’re in the right counts and taking your walks when you need to,” Horwitz said. “That’s always the goal. It’s nice to show up tonight.”

It was the fourth win in five games for the Pirates (70-90), who also got two-hit games from Nick Gonzales, Bryan Reynolds, Nick Yorke and Henry Davis in a 14-hit performance.

They won convincingly, despite Keller issuing a season-high five walks and having his second-shortest start of the season. He allowed one run on three hits and recorded six strikeouts in 3 2/3 innings. Keller finished 6-15, with a 4.19 ERA and 1.26 WHIP in 176 1/3 innings over 32 starts.

“Kind of all over the place, honestly, with my pitches and just the stat line: A lot of walks, a lot of strikeouts,” Keller said. “I don’t know, just one of those weird nights. Happened to be my last one.”

Keller tied Paul Skenes for the team lead in starts, marking his third consecutive season with 30 or more. Keller’s 124 starts since the start of the 2022 season are the fourth-most in the National League and eighth-most in the majors.

It marked only the 14th time the Pirates scored more than three runs in a start by Keller this season. They did not score more than four runs in any of Keller’s first 16 starts, including nine consecutive starts in which the Pirates scored two runs or fewer in a stretch from May 7-June 21.

“He’s a workhorse,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said of Keller. “Early on in the season, he was getting deeper into games and finding ways. As he continues to get better, he’s always looking for ways to do that. He’s always been that type of workhorse who’s giving us consistent innings, consistent production. It really means a lot to the team.”

Keller got off to a shaky start when Matt Olson gave the Braves a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning when he completed an eight-pitch at-bat by sending a 2-2 sweeper 383 feet to right field for his 29th homer.

The Pirates responded with four runs in the second against Joey Wentz, who started the season in their bullpen. Horwitz, making a rare start against a lefty, drew a leadoff walk. Tommy Pham followed by crushing an 0-1 slider 433 feet to left field for his 10th home run and a 2-1 lead.

With one out, Yorke hit a bloop single to right field, advanced to second on a wild pitch by Wentz and scored on a single to center by Davis to make it 3-1. Gonzales drove in Davis with a two-out single to center for a 4-1 lead.

The Pirates began the game with only three players with double-digit homers this season – Oneil Cruz (20), Reynolds (16) and Andrew McCutchen (13) – before Pham (10) and, later, Horwitz (11) joined.

Keller walked Jurickson Profar, Ronald Acuna Jr. and Drake Baldwin to load the bases in the third but struck out Ha-Seong Kim and got Michael Harris II to ground out to escape the jam unscathed.

Keller was pulled with two outs after giving up a pair of walks in the fourth inning. Yohan Ramirez relieved him and struck out Olson to strand both runners, as the Braves went 0 for 9 with runners in scoring position and left nine on base.

The Braves flipped the script on them in the fifth. After Reynolds hit a leadoff single and McCutchen drew a full-count walk, the Braves replaced Wentz with another former Pirates reliever. Hunter Stratton walked Horwitz to load the bases, then struck out Pham and pinch hitter Jack Suwinski before getting Yorke to ground into a force out at second to end the frame.

Harris led off the sixth by hammering a Mike Burrows slider 407 feet to right for his 20th home run to cut it to 4-2.

Horwitz answered with a solo shot of his own, sending a 1-1 slider from Joel Payamps 403 feet to right for his 10th homer and a 5-2 lead. A dugout conversation with Pirates hitting coach Matt Hague helped Horwitz’s approach.

“See that heater up and away, and that’ll keep me on the slider. That’s what it was,” Horwitz said in an on-field postgame interview with SportsNet Pittsburgh. “If something started middle-away, I was swinging at it. I put a good swing on it. I gave Hague all the credit when I got back in.”

A 49-minute rain delay followed, forcing both teams to make pitching changes in the seventh inning.

Braves lefty Dylan Dodd inherited a full count against Pham but needed only one pitch to get the final out on a comebacker. Isaac Mattson recorded two outs before Acuna singled to right, then scored on Baldwin’s double to right-center to cut it to 5-3.

Jared Triolo led off the ninth with a double, then scored to stretch the lead to 6-3 when Braves second baseman Nick Allen — a defensive replacement — fielded a bad hop but made an errant throw to first on a Gonzales grounder up the middle. After McCutchen singled, Horwitz hit a 2-1 fastball 414 feet to right-center for a three-run homer to give the Pirates a 9-3 lead.

“He really got a hold of both of those,” Kelly said. “Two really big home runs, giving us an insurance run in the beginning, then adding on late. The big hit that’s been eluding us. He had a huge one there at the end.”