New look Bucs ‘pen helps them climb Wild Card standings

MILWAUKEE — The Pirates turned their Miller Park experience all the way around; from consistent defeat to daily victory.

After losing nine straight here, not to mention 64 of 81 over the last 10 seasons, the Bucs swept a four-game series, finishing the job with a 3-1 victory on Sunday. In the process, they moved to one-half game back of the Cardinals for the second National League Wild Card berth.

How did they do it? They had solid starting pitching in three of the four games, fine defense, and hitting that was, if not plentiful every day, timely. But the one constant that went through each of these victories for the Pirates was the work of their bullpen.

Pittsburgh relievers worked 16 1/3 innings in this series and gave up just two earned runs, while striking out 25. Three shutout innings were pitched Sunday, courtesy of lefty Antonio Bastardo, lefty Felipe Rivero and the new Pittsburgh closer, Tony Watson.

“We’ve been blessed with a good bullpen since ’13,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said. “This bullpen has been able to hit a switch lately. You look at Bastardo’s outing today. He had a season in New York, he’s having a different season here. Nine pitches [to get three outs] today.

“Rivero is pitching in higher leverage situations than he did in Washington and he’s adding value to the things he does. Watson, that’s his 10th save on a guy that moved in when we traded [Mark] Melancon. He moved in, he’s got 10 saves. And other guys have thrown in. It’s been a complete, collective work of very solid pitching out there by everybody.”

Brewers manager Craig Counsell saw the work of the Bucs bullpen as a critical factor in this series.

“I feel like we’ve done a good …

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