Recent surge puts Pirates 'in a good spot' heading into All-Star break

CHICAGO -- As Major League Baseball embarks on a four-game break to conduct All-Star festivities in Arlington, Texas, the Pirates are hitting the pause button during a stretch in which they've stacked positive results to finally reach the .500 mark for the first time since they held a 14-14 record back on April 27. 

They accomplished that feat by earning a 9-4 victory over the White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field Sunday afternoon, a win that secured their first series sweep since their season-opening series in Miami and extended their winning streak to four games. 

"It's huge for the team. That was the goal coming into this road series, trying to leave here at .500, and we accomplished that goal," said Mitch Keller, who allowed two runs on four hits with three walks and three strikeouts in three innings on Sunday. "I think we've played really good baseball, this last series especially and even when we were at home. Just trying to take this and roll with it in the second half." 

The Pirates closed out the first half of the season by winning six of their last seven games, including two on the road against the first-place Brewers this past week. While Andrew McCutchen told me prior to this one that streaks aren't the focus and taking care of business on a day-to-day basis is the priority, there's undoubtedly pride taken in what the team accomplished throughout a seven-game stretch in which they outscored their opponents by a 40-20 margin. 

"It's good where we are right now, winning the games that we're winning," McCutchen said. "We've put ourselves in a good position to push for the second half because by no means is the second half of the season going to be easy, playing a lot of tough teams. I don't worry too much about it. I feel like we play really good teams really good. I'm looking forward to it." 

Eyeing a rare sweep against the team with the worst record in Major League Baseball, the Pirates were put to the test with the White Sox scoring two runs in the first three innings, including one on a solo home run by Andrew Benintendi in the third. 

But the bats -- as they did throughout the series with a total of 19 runs over three games -- eventually came alive after Oneil Cruz got the visitors on the board with an RBI double that plated Bryan Reynolds with the tying run in the third: 

An inning later, Joey Bart shifted the momentum in the Pirates' favor by belting a 3-2 cutter from Chad Kuhl over the wall in left-center field for his sixth home run of the season and second of the road trip: 

From there, the floodgates opened. A four-run seventh inning included a sac fly off the bat of Rowdy Tellez, an RBI double by Joshua Palacios and this Nick Gonzales two-run triple that started it all: 

And, to put the icing on the cake, the Pirates' All-Star outfielder followed up a four-hit, four-RBI showing on Saturday with another multi-hit game that included a solo shot -- his 18th of the season -- in the eighth: 

In bringing out the brooms, the Pirates relied on five relievers to cover six solid innings to follow Keller's three and the offense supported the pitching staff with 12 hits, three of which came from Ke'Bryan Hayes, who had multiple hits in each game in Chicago. Cruz, Reynolds and Palacios each added two hits in the win. 

"We played really well over the last series’. I mean going to Milwaukee and winning two and then coming here and getting the sweep, I’m just proud of our group because they played the entire game and were able to add on at the end," Derek Shelton said. "I think the biggest thing is our starting pitching has been good, we are starting to swing the bats better. I think we saw that late in the game with good at-bats. Key had some really good at-bats late in the game. So I think we are in a good spot. We've got a tough road at home coming out of the break because we have Philly and we have St. Louis and then we get Arizona. So we have some teams that are in front of us, so we need to play well coming out of the break, but it's nice the way we’ve played so far."

In the midst of a grueling 162-game season, players are welcoming the opportunity to step away for a bit and recharge for what the Pirates hope to be a second-half run at a playoff spot. They're currently 1.5 games behind the Mets for that final wild card berth, but the big question surrounds whether this team can build on the recent momentum when they return to PNC Park for a three-game series against the Phillies next weekend. 

"Any time you take a break, you roll the dice on what the momentum is going to be like when you come back," Colin Holderman said. "But we have a lot of dudes that are pros here, so everyone is going to do what they gotta do to stay fresh during the break. You need that rest, but at the same time you gotta stay ready to go. I think we’ll be good coming back. We have some people that have done it before, that have had plenty of All-Star breaks, so I think we’ll be alright."