{"id":776373,"date":"2026-07-02T21:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T21:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/776373\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T21:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T21:57:09","slug":"esmerlyn-valdez-helps-pirates-beat-phillies-to-split-four-game-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/776373\/","title":{"rendered":"Esmerlyn Valdez helps Pirates beat Phillies to split four-game series"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA (AP) \u2014 Esmerlyn Valdez<\/a> tripled, singled and knocked in two runs, Endy Rodriguez<\/a> and Nick Gonzales<\/a> homered and the Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> beat the Philadelphia Phillies<\/a> 6-1 on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The Pirates split their four-game series in Philadelphia, closing with a win against a Phillies team that had won 11 of its previous 15 games at Citizens Bank Park.<\/p>\n

Jake Mangum<\/a> had three hits and a run scored, while Brandon Lowe<\/a> had a pair of hits, scored a run and reached safely three times for Pittsburgh. The Pirates had 14 hits and limited the Phillies to four.<\/p>\n

Phillies starting pitcher Alan Rangel<\/a>, promoted recently from Triple-A Lehigh Valley, held his own against the Pirates but didn\u2019t last long.<\/p>\n

Rangel threw 90 pitches in four innings, allowing no runs on only three hits, but with four walks and four strikeouts. He left with a 1-0 lead, courtesy of Bryce Harper<\/a>\u2019s two-out, RBI double to left field in the third.<\/p>\n

That left runners on second and third, but Pirates starter Jared Jones<\/a> escaped further damage by getting Brandon Marsh<\/a> on a fly to right. Jones also lasted four innings, allowing two hits with six strikeouts.<\/p>\n

The Pirates tied it in the fifth against Tim Mayza<\/a>, who gave up a double to leadoff hitter Mangum and a single to Brandon Lowe<\/a>. Valdez then singled home Mangum with a tying run.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh took the lead off Jose Alvarado<\/a> (3-3) in the seventh inning as Valdez tripled home Lowe, and Gonzales, who had three hits and two RBIs, knocked in Valdez. Gonzales homered in the ninth.<\/p>\n

Carmen Mlodzinski<\/a> (5-3) allowed two hits over three scoreless innings for the Pirates.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Pirates: Start a three-game series in Washington on Friday night, running RHP Mitch Keller<\/a> (6-5, 4.87 ERA) out against Nationals LHP Foster Griffin<\/a> (8-2, 2.93 ERA).<\/p>\n

Phillies: After a Friday off day, they play Saturday night in Kansas City, with LHP Jesus Luzardo<\/a> (6-4, 3.88 ERA) going against Royals RHP Michael Wacha<\/a> (5-5, 3.31 ERA).<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/p>\n

Rob Parent, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (AP) \u2014 Esmerlyn Valdez tripled, singled and knocked in two runs, Endy Rodriguez and Nick Gonzales homered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-776373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}