Fighting for spot in OF, Canaan Smith-Njigba continues hot streak as Pirates beat Red Sox
As the position battles heat up for the final spots on the Opening Day roster, so have the bats of the outfielders fighting to start the season with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Canaan Smith-Njigba continued on his tear, going 3 for 4 with two RBIs, while Travis Swaggerty and Miguel Andujar also made cases to be the fourth outfielder against the Boston Red Sox.
After a Swaggerty triple in the sixth inning, Andujar hit a two-run shot for his first home run of spring training as the Pirates beat the Red Sox, 7-5, Monday in a Grapefruit League game at JetBlue Park at Fenway South in Fort Myers, Fla.
Luis Ortiz, making his first start since pitching for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic, allowed two runs on three hits and two walks with two strikeouts in three innings.
The Pirates jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning after Ji Hwan Bae singled to shortstop and advanced to second on a throwing error by Kike Hernandez, then scored when Jack Suwinski reached on an error by center fielder Adam Duvall. Smith-Njigba hit an RBI single to score Rodolfo Castro, improving his batting average to .324 (11 for 34). Over his last seven games, Smith-Njigba is batting .417 with two homers and seven RBIs.
The Red Sox rallied with with a Triston Casas sacrifice fly to score Rafael Devers in the bottom of the first and tied the game when Duvall doubled to left to score Justin Turner in the third.
Mark Mathias drew a walk against Kenley Jansen, stole second base and scored when Kevin Plawecki reached on an error by left fielder Raimel Tapia for a 3-2 lead in the fourth.
The Pirates increased their lead in the fifth. Castro singled, stole second, advanced to third on an Andujar flyout and scored on Smith-Njigba’s single to left to make it 4-2. Swaggerty, who has reached safely in six consecutive games, singled to left to drive in Smith-Njigba for a 5-2 lead.
Andujar’s two-run shot off Ryan Blasier made it 7-2. The Red Sox added a run on Daniel Palka’s RBI single off Angel Perdomo in the eighth and two more in the ninth, then scored two more in the ninth against Cody Bolton to cut it to 7-5.
JT Brubaker is expected to start against Matt Strahm when the Pirates host the Philadelphia Phillies at 1:05 p.m. Tuesday at LECOM Park in Bradenton.
Kevin Gorman is a TribLive reporter covering the Pirates. A Baldwin native and Penn State graduate, he joined the Trib in 1999 and has covered high school sports, Pitt football and basketball and was a sports columnist for 10 years. He can be reached at kgorman@triblive.com.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.