{"id":241342,"date":"2026-07-12T02:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T02:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/241342\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T02:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T02:10:08","slug":"esmerlyn-valdez-homers-again-as-pirates-edge-brewers-3-2-sweep-twinbill-from-nl-central-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/241342\/","title":{"rendered":"Esmerlyn Valdez homers again as Pirates edge Brewers, 3-2, sweep twinbill from NL Central leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Esmerlyn Valdez hit his third home run of the day, and the Pittsburgh Pirates edged the NL Central-leading Milwaukee Brewers 3-2 on Saturday to sweep a doubleheader.<\/p>\n<p>The Pirates won the first game 7-6, as Valdez hit two home runs \u2014 including a go-ahead grand slam in the seventh inning \u2014 and drove in six runs.<\/p>\n<p>The rookie right fielder had eight RBIs in the two games and now has homered 10 times and driven in 26 runs in his first 27 career games.<\/p>\n<p>Valdez&#8217;s two-run shot in the fourth inning of the nightcap opened the scoring. Brice Turang&#8217;s two-run double in the fifth pulled the Brewers even.<\/p>\n<p>Bryan Reynolds singled in the go-ahead run in the sixth off rookie left-hander Shane Drohan (4-3), who allowed three runs and five hits over 6 1\/3 innings while striking out six and walking none.<\/p>\n<p>Yohan Ramirez (6-2) pitched a scoreless sixth. Mason Montgomery protected a one-run lead in the ninth inning for his first save of the season and the second of his career.<\/p>\n<p>Pirates rookie starter Bubba Chandler lasted 4 2\/3 innings, allowing two runs and five hits. He struck out six and walked three.<\/p>\n<p>The Brewers missed the chance to win their 60th game of the season, a feat they have never accomplished before the All-Star break. <\/p>\n<p>The doubleheader was necessitated by Friday night&#8217;s scheduled game being rained out.<\/p>\n<p>Up next<\/p>\n<p>The three-game series concludes on Sunday with a matchup of All-Stars as Brewers RHP Jacob Misiorowski (10-4, 1.62 ERA) faces Pirates RHP Paul Skenes (7-8, 3.58).<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Esmerlyn Valdez hit his third home run of the day, and the Pittsburgh Pirates edged the NL Central-leading&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[11199,74341,73,75,74,10997,726],"class_list":["post-241342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-milwaukee-brewers","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241342","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=241342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}