Luis Castillo outduels JT Brubaker as Reds shut out Pirates for their eighth consecutive loss - TribLIVE

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The Pittsburgh Pirates were looking for a bounce-back game by JT Brubaker, as the rookie right-hander was seven days removed from his worst start of the season.

What they got was a pitcher’s duel.

And Brubaker was better, just not good enough to win.

Brubaker pitched four scoreless innings before Shogo Akiyama’s RBI single to left scored Jose Garcia in the fifth to give the Cincinnati Reds a 1-0 victory and a four-game sweep over the Pirates on Wednesday night at Great American Ball Park.

It marked a season-high eighth consecutive loss for the Pirates (14-34) and their second shutout this week, after an 11-0 loss Sunday at the Kansas City Royals. But Brubaker rose to the challenge of going against Reds starter Luis Castillo.

“It was very enjoyable, just going out there and trying to make sure that I wasn’t the guy to give up that one run,” Brubaker said. “Unfortunately, I was but to see who was going to give up a run first was the enjoyable part of it. The battle between two starting pitchers, in my opinion, is the best part of baseball. Everybody wants to see the long ball but I think a pitcher’s duel is way more fun and enjoyable.”

Brubaker (1-2) allowed five hits and one walk while striking out four Reds, throwing 92 pitches (57 for strikes) in 5 1/3 innings. But Castillo (3-5) mixed a fastball and changeup to hold them to three hits and one walk while striking out 10 in seven innings.

“I thought the changeup was that good. He was really good,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said, noting that Castillo was even better than his 4-2 win over the Pirates on Sept. 4. “Not only did the changeup have the down action (but) normally the fastball has a little side-to-side, and it was straight down. They were kinda tunneling right off each other, and with that velo, that makes it extremely difficult. He didn’t make very many mistakes. The mistakes he made, we hit into the ground. We hit a couple balls hard that we hit right into the ground, at people.”

In his previous start, Brubaker gave up seven runs on seven hits, including a pair of James McCann home runs, in 5 1/3 innings in an 8-1 loss to the Chicago White Sox on Sept. 9 at PNC Park. Manager Derek Shelton said Brubaker’s ability to recover ranked “near the top” of the Pirates’ priorities, as much if not more than the outcome of the game.

“I thought he did a really nice job,” Shelton said. “It was a good outing for him.”

Against the Reds, Brubaker didn’t allow a runner to reach second base until the fifth inning, when Garcia hit a two-out single and advanced to third on Curt Casali’s broken-bat single to center. Casali stole second uncontested, putting both Reds runners in scoring position.

Akiyama hit a bloop to shallow left, scoring Garcia for a 1-0 lead, but Pirates rookie third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes cut off Adam Frazier’s throw and got Akiyama into a rundown between first and second. When Casali attempted to score, Hayes pivoted and threw to the plate, where catcher John Ryan Murphy chased Casali down the third base line and tagged him for the final out.

Nick Castellanos started the sixth with a double to left-center, as the Reds’ fourth consecutive hit off Brubaker. After Joey Votto’s groundout to shortstop Erik Gonzalez in a defensive shift to advance Castellanos to third, the Pirates pulled Brubaker for lefty reliever Sam Howard.

The first batter Howard faced was Tyler Stephenson, whom he surrendered a walk-off homer in the first game of Monday’s doubleheader at Cincinnati, a 3-1 loss. This time, Howard struck out Stephenson looking at a 93 mph four-seam fastball inside, then got Mike Moustakas to ground out to second to strand Castellanos at third.

Josh Bell drew a one-out walk in the seventh but Castillo got both Gonzalez and Kevin Newman to go down swinging to reach double-digit strikeouts for the second time this season. Castillo had 11 strikeouts on Opening Day, a 6-4 loss at Detroit.

Archie Bradley retired the Pirates in order in the eighth, and Raisel Iglesias did the same in the ninth for his eighth save.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Shelton said. “This didn’t work out very well for us. So, we’ve got to get home, kinda refresh and try to finish the season strong.”

Kevin Gorman is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Kevin by email at kgorman@triblive.com or via Twitter .

Categories: Pirates/MLB | Sports

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Luis Castillo outduels JT Brubaker as Reds shut out Pirates for their eighth consecutive loss - TribLIVE

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