Pirates sputtered, but scored 9 runs
Scoring nine runs in a game is a good offensive output under almost any circumstance.
However, when the Pirates beat the Milwaukee Brewers 9-3 last Sunday at PNC Park, it seemed as if the offense sputtered to some degree.
Perhaps it was because the Pirates scored nine runs despite putting together a 17-hit attack and also drawing seven walks.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, each of the previous 52 major league teams that had at least that many hits and walks in a game scored at least 11 runs, dating to April 2010.
It had been nearly 45 years — July 17, 1971 — since the Pirates had at least 17 hits and seven walks and failed to score in double digits. They beat the San Diego Padres 9-2 that afternoon at Three Rivers Stadium.
Manny Sanguillen led the way by going 4-for-5 with two RBIs while Roberto Clemente was 3-for-5 and Bob Robertson hit a home run to lead a 17-hit attack. Dock Ellis pitched a seven-hitter to beat Fred Norman.
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The Pirates had hit a double in each of their first 17 games this season and had at least two two-base hits in eight straight games going into Saturday night’s game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Phoenix.
The team record for consecutive games with at least one double to start a season is 27 in 2008. Meanwhile, the record for most games in a row with multiple doubles is 12, set from April 26-May 16, 1925, then matched less than a month later in 1925 from June 6-16 and equaled from June 27-July 9, 2008.
So what do all the early-season doubles mean? It’s hard to say.
The 1925 Pirates won the World Series. The 2008 team, meanwhile, went 67-95 and finished last in the National League Central.
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The 12-game hitting streak that first baseman John Jaso took into Saturday night represented a bit of esoteric Pirates’ history.
It marked the longest hitting streak in April by a player in his first season with the Pirates, dating to at least 1913, when records are first available, according to research performed on baseball-reference.com.
The Pirates singed Jaso to a two-year, $8-million contract as a free agent last December.