Mitch Keller serves as stopper as Pirates beat Giants for 1st series win in a month

Mitch Keller served as the stopper for another Pittsburgh Pirates streak and put his name in the club’s record books in the process.

Inspired by another strong start from Keller and an offensive outburst, the Pirates beat the San Francisco Giants, 9-4, on Wednesday afternoon at Oracle Park for their first series win in a month.

Keller allowed four runs on 10 hits but gave up only one walk and recorded eight strikeouts in six innings, stopping the drought of series wins after ending losing streaks of seven and four games earlier in the month.

“We had Mitch on the mound,” Pirates third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes said on the AT&T SportsNet postgame show, “and he did Mitch things.”

The Pirates hadn’t won a series since sweeping a doubleheader April 29 to take two of three games at the Washington Nationals. By beating the Giants in back-to-back games, the Pirates (28-27) ended a stretch of eight series without a win in May and moved within a half-game of the Milwaukee Brewers (28-26) for first place in the NL Central.

The Pirates return Friday to PNC Park for the start of a 10-day, nine-game homestand featuring three-game series against the St. Louis Cardinals, Oakland A’s and New York Mets.

“You always want to win the series, especially to cap off the month. We hadn’t won one, so I was definitely coming in trying to throw zeroes and give us a chance to win,” Keller said. “Our offense kind of took care of that. I didn’t really do too much, just throw strikes and not let them score eight.”

It marked Keller’s seventh consecutive start with eight or more strikeouts — the longest streak by a Pirates pitcher in the modern era and the longest active streak in the majors — and boosted his season total to 93 to become the first pitcher in franchise history to record 90 or more before June 1. The previous high was 89 by A.J. Burnett in 2013.

Keller (7-1) became the first pitcher since Gerrit Cole in 2015 and the sixth in franchise history to earn seven wins before June 1. Keller also became the first Pirates pitcher since Ivan Nova in 2017 to toss more than 70 innings before June 1, with 74 2/3 over 12 starts.

“Third game of a three-game series, we’re tied and we know we have Mitch on the mound, it’s always a little bit more confidence,” Pirates first baseman Connor Joe said. “We know we’re going to have a chance to win the game and we gave him run support that allowed for that.”

Joe and Andrew McCutchen both went 3 for 4 to lead five Pirates players with multiple hits as they got 14 against the Giants. The Pirates were 7 for 17 with runners in scoring position after going a combined 6 for 41 in the first five games of the road trip.

The Giants took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second, as Blake Sabol singled on a ball that bounced off shortstop Chris Owings and scored on Patrick Bailey’s single.

That’s when the Pirates offense came alive against Giants lefty Alex Wood and answered with a four-run third. Ji Hwan Bae drew a leadoff walk, advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt by Austin Hedges and scored when Sabol made a diving attempt but couldn’t hang onto McCutchen’s double to left.

After Joe was hit by a pitch, Castro singled to left to score McCutchen for a 2-1 lead. Hayes followed with a grounder down the third-base line to drive in two runs to make it 4-1, turning it into a triple when J.D. Davis left the bag uncovered after a diving attempt.

“As I’m running to second, I’m surveying the field and I saw he was kind of in no-man’s land,” Hayes said. “No one was picking up third, so I went for it.”

The Giants added another run in the third, when LaMonte Wade Jr. hit the ball into the right-center alley for a double and scored on a single by Wilmer Flores to cut it to 4-2.

Wood struggled through a 34-pitch fourth inning, giving up a double to Bae and walking McCutchen to put runners on second and third when Bryan Reynolds hit a two-out single through the middle to score both and give the Pirates a 6-2 lead.

Mike Yastrzemski hit a two-out triple and scored on Keller’s wild pitch to cut it to 6-3 in the bottom of the fifth, but the Pirates added a pair of runs to increase their lead to 8-3 in the sixth.

Bae hit a leadoff single, advanced to second on Hedges’ sacrifice, reached third on McCutchen’s single to right and scored when Reynolds grounded into a forceout at second. Reynolds reached safely when Giants second baseman Casey Schmitt made a throwing error attempting to turn a double play, and he scored on Joe’s double to right.

Keller battled through a shaky sixth, giving up singles to Sabol and Bailey before Reynolds robbed Schmitt of an extra-base hit with a leaping catch at the left-field wall. Sabol scored on the sacrifice fly to cut it to 8-4, but Keller got Brett Wisely looking at a sweeper on the outside corner for a called third strike to end the inning.

The Pirates tacked on another run in the ninth against Camilo Doval. Joe singled to center, stole second base and scored on Jack Suwinski’s bloop single to shallow left for a 9-4 lead.

The Pirates got another stellar performance from their bullpen, as Rob Zastryzny, Dauri Moreta, Robert Stephenson and Yohan Ramirez combined to throw final three scoreless innings.

“A couple tough games in Seattle, then came in here and beat probably the team that’s playing the best in baseball two of three,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “I’m proud of this group to finish (May) the way they did.”