Pirates surge after Alvarez home run secures first four-game road sweep since 1997

DENVER The baseball cleared the right-field wall at Coors Field and crashed into the Colorado Rockies bullpen, and the big man lumbered around the bases. Pedro Alvarez had just thumped a two-out, three-run home run to put the Pirates ahead in the eighth.

“You never know how the ball is going to play in this park,” Alvarez said after the Pirates’ 5-4 come-from-behind win and four-game series sweep. “I just hoped like heck it had enough to go out.”

In the trainer’s room, two Pirates pitches were watching on TV as Alvarez stepped to the plate, down by two runs. Bobby LaFrombiose told Jeff Locke before the pitch, “Pedro’s going to homer here.” When Rockies righty Jairo Diaz tried to fire a third consecutive 98 mph fastball past Alvarez, who was 0 for his previous 7 at-bats, Alvarez smashed it for his 26th home run.

“It was probably one of the quickest balls I’ve seen leave any ballpark,” Locke said of the homer that left the bat at 115 mph, according to MLB’s Statcast.

The Pirates (93-60) won their sixth game in a row and climbed 32 games over .500 for the first time since 1991. They still are 3 1/2 games behind the first-place St. Louis Cardinals.

The series finale also was the Pirates 10,000th win since joining the National League in 1887 they are the fifth franchise to reach the 10,000-win club and marked their first four-game series sweep on the road since June 1997.

Prior to Alvarez’s blast, the Pirates had been 1-52 this season when trailing after seven innings. Now, they are riding a mile high as they head to the Windy City for a pivotal weekend series against the Cubs, who trail them by 3 1/2 games in the wild-card race.

In a Friday matinee at Wrigley Field, the Pirates will start budding ace Gerrit Cole opposite Cubs left-hander Jon Lester, the two-time World Series champion who signed a six-year, $155 million free-agent deal in December.

“I imagine it’ll be packed,” manager Clint Hurdle said, then smiled.

Starling Marte was 4-for-5 Thursday to improve to 13 for 20 (.650) in the series and tie Hall of Famer Pie Traynor’s 1928 franchise record for most hits in a four-game series. When asked if he knew of Traynor, Marte wore a confused looked and said, “No?”

“Pie Traynor? That’s going way back,” Hurdle said. “That’s a big-league name.”

On the road trip, which will conclude this weekend in Chicago, Marte is 16-for-31 (.516) to raise his season average from .280 to .293. Before leaving the clubhouse, he gave Coors Field a five-star review: “Awesome. Very good park.”

Mark Melancon pitched a perfect ninth for his league-leading 50th save, extending his single-season club record. He has allowed no hits over his past nine innings, a closer’s quasi-version of a no-hitter.

“Anybody that hasn’t done that can’t realize how tough it is,” Hurdle said.

Pirates starting pitchers failed to get through six innings in any of the four games in Denver, yet the Pirates still swept the series. On Thursday, Locke allowed eight hits and four runs in 5 2/?3 innings. He avoided a big inning, but needed help from the bullpen.

Not penciled in the rotation for the next two series, Locke said he does not know if he’ll be asked to start against this season. He is 8-11 with a 4.54 ERA in 30 starts this season.

Alvarez made two defensive misplays that led to runs in the fifth and sixth. He dropped Locke’s throw on a close play at first, then he couldn’t corral a big hop on a grounder that scored the Rockies’ fourth run. Both plays were ruled as base hits.

Afterward, Hurdle said Alvarez, like others in the clubhouse, “has a responsibility to the other men in the clubhouse” to not let hiccups in the field affect their hitting, or vice versa. Alvarez, who hadn’t hit a three-run homer in 13 months, held up his end of the bargain Thursday. He preferred not to discuss his redemption, either, but rather the team’s resiliency.

“Even if the division was won already, hypothetically speaking, this is a team that would go out there and give it their all,” Alvarez said. “That’s embedded in our DNA and engrained in the way we go about business.”

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