Tired Tucker leads Pirates to win

Associated Press

Pittsburgh

Cole Tucker’s day began with him frantically packing up what he could in his Indianapolis apartment in the middle of the night, grabbing a 5 a.m. flight to Pittsburgh and trying not to be overwhelmed by the prospect of his major league debut.

It ended with a 431-foot homer into shrubs beyond the center field fence at PNC Park in a rain-shortened 3-1 Pirates victory over the San Francisco Giants on Saturday that left the 22-year-old both elated and exhausted.

Tucker admitted he didn’t sleep one bit after getting the call around 1 a.m.

The rookie didn’t look a bit tired when he turned on a 91 mph sinker from Derek Holland (1-3) for a two-run shot in the fifth that put Pittsburgh ahead to stay.

The team’s first-round pick in the 2014 draft kept it together until rounding second, when he saw his teammates celebrating in the dugout and the crowd on its feet. He made the “I Love You” sign to his family in the stands and — after some prodding — stepped back onto the field for a curtain call.

Not bad for a self-proclaimed “skinny, not home-run-hitter guy.”

“It was loud man, people were screaming,” Tucker said. “It was really, really cool. I might never do that again in my life. But to say that I did that and for my family to be here to see that and to introduce myself to this city and this club in that fashion is like, storybook.”

An arrival that gave the Pirates a welcome jolt after losing Erik Gonzalez for at least two months with a broke collarbone and Starling Marte for 10 days and possibly more after they smacked into each other at full speed while trying to track down a fly ball to center field. Marte is dealing with bruises to both his abdomen and right leg, while Gonzalez will have his left arm in a sling indefinitely.

For a day anyway, the NL Central-leading Pirates overcame their absences thanks in part to Tucker, one who became the first Pirate to homer in his first big league game since Marte did it on July 26, 2012.

“I didn’t show up thinking, oh, I’m stressed thinking Marte got hurt or Erik got hurt or what have you,”’ Tucker said. “But it definitely felt like we needed a pick-me-up today, losing two of our boys. So it was sweet to go out and do that.”

Reynolds laced a single off Holland in the fourth for first major league hit. Jung Ho Kang added his third home run and Jameson Taillon (1-2) allowed one run on four hits with a walk and three strikeouts to win.

Steven Duggar laced an RBI single off Taillon in the fifth to tie it, but Tucker’s shot off Holland in the bottom of the inning was quickly followed by a delay of 3 hours, 8 minutes, before the game was called.

“If it wasn’t for bad luck, right now we wouldn’t have any,” San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy said. “That’s how things have been going.”

Holland struck out seven in five innings but Pittsburgh punished his mistakes.

Asked if he had a problem with Tucker coming out for a curtain call — one Tucker made while Holland was in the middle of striking out Kang — Holland shrugged.

“The kid is living in the moment,” Holland said. “It’s a major league debut and he hit a homer. Good for him. It’s not what I wanted. That’s for sure.”

UP NEXT

The series concludes today when Chris Archer (1-0, 2.00 ERA) faces San Francisco’s Dereck Rodriguez (3-3, 3.63).