Rangers Lose To Pirates
ARLINGTON, Texas — The Pittsburgh Pirates put an end to Texas Rangers starter Cole Hamels’ winning streak in resounding fashion Friday.
Pittsburgh hit four home runs, chased Hamels in the fifth inning and rolled to its fifth-straight win with a 9-1 victory over the Rangers.
Hamels (5-1) hadn’t lost since Aug. 7, 2015 — his second start with Texas — and was 12-0 since then coming into Friday’s start.
The Pirates ended any chance at Hamels continuing the streak by scoring five times in the fifth inning to take a 6-0 lead. Hamels was done after 4 2/3 innings after he was tagged for six runs (five earned) in his shortest start since joining the Rangers.
Pittsburgh led 1-0 before scoring five times in the fifth. A throwing error by Texas first baseman Mitch Moreland on a potential double-play ball put runners on second and third with no outs. Andrew McCutchen and David Freese followed with RBI singles to make it 3-0 and designated hitter Jung Ho Kang followed the Freese at-bat with a
three-run homer to right to push the Pittsburgh lead to 6-0.
“I think we showed some patience,” Pittsburgh manager Clint Hurdle said. “We didn’t chase, and we took advantage of an error. Big advantage, a swing from Kang, two guys in front of him setting him up though. Freese with an RBI and McCutchen with an RBI. We saw a lot of pitches and made him pitch.”
Kang was making his first big-league start at designated hitter and had time to prepare for Hamels.
“I’m pretty comfortable playing DH,” said Kang, who spent some time at DH in Korea. “Today especially, I really focused on my hitting so I thought that helped a lot.”
The fifth provided plenty of offense for left-hander Jonathan Niese (5-3), who carried a shutout into the sixth inning before Adrian Beltre hit a solo homer. Niese allowed one run in six innings, striking out two and giving up seven hits.
Hamels was never able to get into a groove, especially in a fifth inning that started with a walk to No. 9 hitter Sean Rodriguez.
“Sometimes you’re going to leave pitches in the zone,” Hamels said. “You’re hoping they’re going to make the mistake. The two pitches I threw up in the middle of the zone they were able to hit out. Especially in the situation of that inning in the fifth, you’ve got to try and keep the ball down or get the pop up here and there. Sometimes that happens. You’re going to make a lot of pitches in games and not necessarily be good ones.”
While Hamels was struggling, Niese was dealing. He registered his fourth straight quality start and made big pitches when he needed to as the Rangers left 10 runners on base and were 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position.
“We were not as sharp as we’d like it,” Texas manager Jeff Banister said. “There were some balls not sharp off the barrel, but still some balls hit hard. We just couldn’t string anything together. I still felt like our at-bats were in a good place but we couldn’t find a way to string a lot of them together.”
The Pirates finished with 14 hits, including their third game with at least four homers. Starling Marte put the Pirates up 1-0 with a homer off Hamels in the second inning and McCutchen added a solo homer in the sixth. Gregory Polanco capped the scoring with a two-run homer in the ninth.
Freese and Marte each had three hits. The Rangers had 10 hits, with Beltre, Nomar Mazara and Bobby Wilson each collecting two hits.
