Pirates blow lead to Reds, fall 9-5

After a rain delay, the Pittsburgh Pirates jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead over the Cincinnati Reds, but the pitching staff couldn’t hold the lead and the offense dried up after a hot start, and the Buccos fell to the Reds 9-5.

Pittsburgh obtained their big lead through Yoshi Tsutsugo and Bryan Reynolds, who both hit solo homers in the first and then followed that up with RBIs in the third.

Pittsburgh’s final run came on a Kevin Newman force out, and that’s when the bottom fell out. The Reds got a two-run double from Nick Castellanos and a two-run homer from Joey Votto. Votto homered again in the fifth along with Eugenio Suarez. Kyle Farmer homered in the seventh to put Cincy up 7-5 and that was all she wrote. The Red would get two more the rest of the way, as Castellanos was walked home and then later singled in Jonathan India for your final tally.

Castellanos and Votto both finished 3-for-5 with three RBIs for Cincy, while Farmer and Suarez finished 2-for-5 with an RBI.

As for the Pittsburgh bats, Yoshi went 2-for-4 with two RBIs, Reynolds went 1-for-3 with two RBIs, and Ben Gamel went 2-for-4 as the notables.

Cody Ponce took the loss for the Pittsburgh staff to move to 0-5 on the year, giving up two homers in his two innings pitched. Starter Dillon Peters went three innings, giving up four runs on four hits for the no decision. Conner Overton went one inning and was the only Pirates pitcher to not give up a run, while Kyle Keller gave up two runs in just two-thirds of an inning, and Enyel De Los Santos gave up a run in one and a third.

The Bucs will be back in action tonight, looking to get back into the spoiler role.