Teoscar Hernandez hits walk-off single as Dodgers sweep Pirates, who lose 7th straight

As soon as Andrew McCutchen made contact, he nonchalantly dropped his bat and started to shrug his shoulders in celebration. It was that obvious that the Pittsburgh Pirates designated hitter had homered again.

McCutchen sparked the Pirates to rally from a four-run deficit with a pair of two-run homers, including the game-tying shot in the eighth, as they attempted to snap a six-game losing streak.

But the Los Angeles Dodgers got the last laugh, as Teoscar Hernandez roped a single to right field off David Bednar to score Kike Hernandez for a 6-5 walk-off win in 10 innings Sunday afternoon at Dodger Stadium.

It was the seventh consecutive loss for the Pirates (56-61), who suffered a second straight sweep against an NL West opponent after losing all three games to the San Diego Padres at PNC Park. They are now in last place in the NL Central and five games back in the wild-card race.

“I don’t feel great,” McCutchen said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “We lost. I mean, nice to hit two homers but the homers are not how we won the game. That’s where we are. We’ve got to fight through it and get ready for the next one. This game takes no prisoners, so you’ve got to be ready to go the next day.”

Bednar (3-5) suffered his second consecutive loss after giving up three runs in the ninth inning in a 7-6 loss to the San Diego Padres on Thursday at PNC Park.

“For these guys to battle back today shows a lot of toughness and grit out of them,” Bednar said. “To not get the job done is infuriating.”

Once again, Pirates manager Derek Shelton blamed Bednar’s fastball command, as he left an 0-2 four-seamer at the top of the strike zone when he intended to throw it above the zone.

“When you stay in the zone to a really good hitter,” Shelton said, “he’s going to put a good swing on it.”

The Dodgers (69-49), who matched the Philadelphia Phillies for the best record in the NL, scored four runs on seven hits and three walks against Pirates lefty Bailey Falter, who threw 93 pitches in four innings.

Then McCutchen (left quad tightness), who returned to the starting lineup for the first time since Wednesday, delivered the 20th multi-homer game of his 16-year major-league career. It was his first since Aug. 18, 2022, when he hit two for the Milwaukee Brewers against the Dodgers.

“It shows the caliber of player he is,” Shelton said. “Two huge homers. … It just shows you how good of a player he actually is, because of the fact that he is grinding.”

With two outs in the first inning, Freddie Freeman hit a full-count fastball for a double that bounced over the short fence in left field. Will Smith followed with a two-strike double that short-hopped the wall in right, driving in Freeman for a 1-0 Dodgers lead. Amed Rosario singled to left to score Smith to stretch it to 2-0.

Falter continued to get hit hard in the second, when a Kike Hernandez single and Andy Pages double to right put a pair of runners in scoring position and Teoscar Hernandez hit a two-out double to the left-field corner to drive in both for a 4-0 Dodgers lead. Teoscar Hernandez went 6 for 12 with five RBIs in the series.

The Pirates cut that deficit in half in the third, when Ji Hwan Bae doubled to right and McCutchen hit Tyler Glasnow’s 2-2 fastball for his 15th home run as the ball bounced off right fielder Pages’ glove at the top of the wall to make it 4-2.

In the process, McCutchen joined Hall of Famers Willie Stargell, Honus Wagner, Paul Waner and Roberto Clemente as the only players in Pirates history with at least 600 extra-base hits.

The Dodgers put runners in scoring position in the fourth, when Kike Hernandez hit a leadoff single, Pages drew walk and Kevin Kiermaier advanced both with a sacrifice bunt. But Falter got Shohei Ohtani to ground out to first and struck out Hernandez to escape.

The Pirates got five scoreless innings from their bullpen but required five relievers, leaving Bednar to pitch the final two innings.

Dennis Santana got out of a jam in the fifth, getting Kike Hernandez to fly out to right with runners on first and second. And after giving up a two-out triple to Ohtani and walking Teoscar Hernandez in the sixth, lefty Jalen Beeks got Freeman to ground out to second to prevent the Dodgers from increasing their lead.

The Pirates had a chance to close the gap in the seventh when Rowdy Tellez hit a leadoff double, but Glasnow got a pair of groundouts before striking out Bae to strand Tellez at third.

The Dodgers pulled Glasnow after seven innings — he allowed two runs on five hits and one walk with four strikeouts — and inserted another former Pirates pitcher in lefty Anthony Banda.

Michael A. Taylor led off the eighth with an infield single to short — the Dodgers lost a challenge — and McCutchen made Banda pay for leaving a 1-1 fastball over the middle of the plate. McCutchen crushed another two-run homer, this one 408 feet to left field, to tie the score at 4-4.

With two outs, Bart singled and Connor Joe drew a walk but Michael Grove got Isiah Kiner-Falefa to ground out to first to end the rally.

In the eighth, the Pirates brought in Aroldis Chapman, who gave up a leadoff double to Pages but got a pair of pop-ups — Nick Ahmed in foul territory behind the plate that saw Bart make a sliding catch, and Ohtani to short — before getting Teoscar Hernandez swinging at a full-count splitter for a strikeout.

Even Bednar escaped trouble in the ninth, when he gave up a two-out single to Gavin Lux but got Miguel Rojas to fly out to center to send the game into extra innings.

McCutchen went down looking at a called third strike to start the 10th, but the Pirates took a 5-4 lead when Bryan Reynolds dropped a single to left in front of Teoscar Hernandez to score automatic runner Taylor from second base. But Oneil Cruz hit into an inning-ending double play.

The Dodgers tied the score when Kike Hernandez answered with double down the left-field line off Bednar to score automatic runner Miguel Rojas in the bottom of the 10th.

Facing a full count against Pages, Bednar was called for a pitch-clock violation and an automatic ball for a walk to put runners on first and second. Bednar recovered to strike out Jason Heyward and get Shohei Ohtani to pop out in foul territory to third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes for the second out.

Then Teoscar Hernandez drove in Kike Hernandez to extend the Pirates’ losing streak and their misery as they head to San Diego for a three-game series in search of their first win since Aug. 3.

“It sucks and wears on you, but I’m proud of the fact that they continue to play,” Shelton said. “We’re down 4-0 today. When you’re in a stretch like this, it’s easy that that game becomes a 4-0 game. That game was not a 4-0 game. We actually took the lead in that game, so I give our guys credit. We’re going to break through. We going get a big hit. We’re going to make a pitch. We need a break to get us out of it right now.”