{"id":235312,"date":"2026-07-04T08:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T08:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/235312\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T08:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T08:44:13","slug":"washington-nationals-and-pittsburgh-pirates-meet-in-game-2-of-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/235312\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington Nationals and Pittsburgh Pirates meet in game 2 of series"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> (44-45, fourth in the NL Central) vs. Washington Nationals<\/a> (46-43, fourth in the NL East)<\/p>\n

Washington; Saturday, 11:05 a.m. EDT<\/p>\n

PITCHING PROBABLES: Pirates: Braxton Ashcraft (8-3, 3.33 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, 115 strikeouts); Nationals: Zack Littell (7-6, 5.29 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, 49 strikeouts)<\/p>\n

LINE: Pirates -169, Nationals +138; over\/under is 10 runs<\/p>\n

BOTTOM LINE: The Washington Nationals host the Pittsburgh Pirates, leading the series 1-0.<\/p>\n

Washington has a 46-43 record overall and an 18-25 record at home. The Nationals are 19-8 in games when they did not allow a home run.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh is 44-45 overall and 21-23 on the road. The Pirates have the third-ranked team on-base percentage in the NL at .338.<\/p>\n

The teams meet Saturday for the sixth time this season. The Nationals lead the season series 3-2.<\/p>\n

TOP PERFORMERS: Luis Garcia<\/a> has a .283 batting average to lead the Nationals, and has 15 doubles, three triples and 18 home runs. Daylen Lile<\/a> is 11 for 38 with two home runs and six RBIs over the last 10 games.<\/p>\n

Brandon Lowe<\/a> leads the Pirates with 41 extra base hits (20 doubles, a triple and 20 home runs). Esmerlyn Valdez<\/a> is 18 for 35 with four doubles, a triple, four home runs and 11 RBIs over the past 10 games.<\/p>\n

LAST 10 GAMES: Nationals: 5-5, .256 batting average, 4.96 ERA, outscored opponents by six runs<\/p>\n

Pirates: 5-5, .300 batting average, 5.48 ERA, outscored opponents by eight runs<\/p>\n

INJURIES: Nationals: Josiah Gray: 60-Day IL (elbow), Jake Irvin<\/a>: 15-Day IL (shoulder), Trevor Williams<\/a>: 60-Day IL (elbow), DJ Herz: 60-Day IL (elbow), Mitchell Parker: 60-Day IL (elbow), Richard Lovelady: 15-Day IL (tricep), Max Kranick<\/a>: 60-Day IL (elbow), Ken Waldichuk<\/a>: 60-Day IL (forearm)<\/p>\n

Pirates: Wilber Dotel: 15-Day IL (lat), Chris Devenski<\/a>: 60-Day IL (illness), Spencer Horwitz<\/a>: 10-Day IL (hamstring), Oneil Cruz: 10-Day IL (hand)<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Pirates (44-45, fourth in the NL Central) vs. Washington Nationals (46-43, fourth in the NL East) Washington;…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[34879,82627,74343,14708,56878,76614,98356,98357,11199,98354,73,75,74,10997,37449,98355,29829],"class_list":["post-235312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-brandon-lowe","tag-chris-devenski","tag-daylen-lile","tag-esmerlyn-valdez","tag-event_preview","tag-jake-irvin","tag-ken-waldichuk","tag-luis-garcia-jr","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-max-kranick","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-spencer-horwitz","tag-trevor-williams","tag-washington-nationals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}