Pirates 5, Indians 3

Gerrit Cole is the Pirates ace and one of the best pitchers in baseball, but in this particular game he needed a little lift from his offense in order to secure yet another win.

But that doesn’t mean Cole wasn’t very good, again, because he was, it just took him a few innings to really find his best stuff and once he did he shut the lights out on the Indians.

The Pirates used a 5-run fifth to take control of the game and then let Cole take care of the rest as they beat the Indians, 5-3, before a crowd of 36,812 at PNC Park.

It was the second win in a row for the Pirates (47-34) and their seventh in nine games and they also improved to 14-10-3 in series this season.

Cole (12-3) became the first pitcher in the Majors this season to 12 wins and despite some struggles early, made yet another strong case to be the starting pitcher for the National League in the All-Star game.

He pitched 8 innings, gave up only five hits and three runs, struck out five and walked only one and 69 of his 106 pitches were strikes.

But things didn’t start out well for Cole as Carlos Santana and Brandon Moss singled to start the top of the second inning and then Santana scored the first run of the game on an RBI single by Michael Bourn.

Bourn then stole second and advanced to third when Chris Stewart’s throw to second was errant and then he gave the Indians a 2-0 lead on a single to left by Roberto Perez.

Cleveland added another run in the top of the third and led 3-0 after Jason Kipnis led off with a double, advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt and then scored on Michael Brantley’s RBI single.

It took five innings for the Pirates to get their bats going but once they got started, they erupted for a huge inning and flipped the script on the game.

Jung Ho Kang got the hit barrage started in the fifth with a single and then Pedro Alvarez pulled the Pirates to within 3-2 with a towering opposite field home run.

Catcher Chris Stewart singled and advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt by Cole and a single by Josh Harrison then Neil Walker tied the game, 3-3, with an RBI single that left the Pirates with two on and two out.

Andrew McCutchen then put a punctuation mark on the inning when he crushed a ball off the centerfield wall for two-run double that put the Pirates up 5-3 and also chased Indians starter Danny Salazar (7-4) from the game.

The Indians to Cole early but the outburst of runs came just as he had seemingly settled in and he retired the final 16 batters he faced.

Mark Melancon then pitched a scoreless ninth inning to earn his National League-leading 27th save.

Perhaps of bigger concern than any other development in this game for the Pirates was that outfielder Starling Marte had to leave the game with discomfort in his left side in the bottom of the 4th inning.

Marte was up to bat with two outs and nobody on and he swung and missed and then had to step out of the batter’s box as he held his side and was looked at by the Pirates athletic trainer.

He stood in for two more pitches but after a week foul ball, he had enough and he retreated back to the dugout and was replaced by Gregory Polanco, who promptly grounded out to end the inning.

Marte will be re-evaluated Monday.