6/12 From 1985: Jamo Back, 1-0 Slugfest, Kracklin' KY, Clark Ball, Game Days, Win #10,000, Baz Drafted, Groat Day, HBD George

1985 – RHP George Kontos was born in Lincolnwood, Illinois. The Pirates picked up the veteran reliever off the waiver wire from San Francisco, where he had spent six campaigns, in August of 2017. He was nearly a Bucco a decade earlier, though – he and Phil Coke were supposed to go to Pittsburgh in 2008 in the original configuration of the Xavier Nady deal. Kontos won an eighth inning set-up spot by going 1-1-1/1.84 in 15 outings but wasn’t nearly as effective in 2018 as he slashed 2-3-1/5.03. The Bucs let him go in late May; he finished the year with stints with New York and Cleveland, spent 2019 in the minors/indie ball and retired in 2020.

1994 – Dave Clark gave Jon Lieber all the support he needed (and he didn’t need much; Jon gave up just five hits and a run in eight innings) against the Florida Marlins, going 4-for-4 with a homer, two doubles, four RBI, a tally and an assist. Clark drove in Al Martin twice and was the only Buc with multiple or extra base hits. The 5-1 victory at TRS capped a four-game sweep of the Fish and five-game Bucco winning streak, drawing 34,728 faithful to the ballpark on a Sunday afternoon.

1999 – Ed Sprague, Kevin Young and Jason Kendall homered, Al Martin had four hits and the Bucs banged out five doubles among their 17 hits to edge the KC Royals 9-8 at TRS. Sprague singled home Adrian Brown in the ninth to earn a walkoff win for Jason Christiansen.

2000 – Kevin Young was off to a hot start and so were the Bucs – KY doubled in the first, homered in the second and had six RBI after two innings as the Pirates piled up an 8-3 lead over the Braves at TRS. But Atlanta didn’t mail it in; they cut the margin to 8-6 after five frames. Then the Bravos scored twice in the eighth and twice more in the ninth to hand Jason Christiansen his sixth straight loss by a 10-8 count. It was a harbinger for the season – Atlanta won the Eastern Division while the Pirates came in last in the Central Division.

Abraham Nunez – 2001 Upper Deck Victory

2001 – The Pirates put up nine runs in the fourth inning to run away with a 13-3 win over the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park. Abraham Nunez had a bases-loaded triple, Rob Mackowiak banged a two-run homer and John Vander Wal added a two-run single in the big frame. Brian Giles homered and doubled for four RBI to match Nunez’s game total as the Bucs hammered seven extra-base hits among their 15 knocks against five Motown hurlers.

2013 – The Pirates/Alleghenys collected their 10,000th franchise win when they beat the Giants 12-8 at PNC Park. 236 wins were collected as the Alleghenys of the American Association and 9,764 dubs were notched in the National League (the NL dubs are the only victories the team officially recognizes). The top of the Pirate order (Starling Marte, Jordy Mercer, Andrew McCutchen, Gaby Sanchez) powered the win against San Francisco, going 13-for-19 and scoring eight runs while driving in four mateys. It marked the fourth time in the last 59 seasons that the top four hitters in the Bucs starting lineup each had at least three hits (it last happened in 2004), and Marte became the first Pirates leadoff hitter since 1916 with a four-hit, four-run, two-steal day. 

2015 – The Pirates took 13 innings, prolonged by an 86-minute rain delay, to defeat the Phils 1-0 at PNC Park. Despite the score, it wasn’t much of a pitching duel – the teams were a combined 1-for-19 with RISP and stranded 30 runners; the Phils had multiple men aboard in six of the innings and the Bucs in five. Both sides used seven pitchers, with Antonio Bastardo getting his first Pirate win thanks to Starling Marte’s walkoff single that scored Chris Stewart.

Shane Baz – 2017 Bowman First Card

2017 – The Pirates drafted Texas prep RHP Shane Baz first (#12, $4.1M) of Concordia Lutheran HS in the draft. They raided the high schools on the first day, also selecting RHP Steven Jennings (#42 – $1.9M/DeKalb HS, Tennessee), and OF Calvin Mitchell (#50 – $1,357,300/Rancho Bernardo HS, California, with a commitment to San Diego State). Baz was later traded to Tampa Bay as part of the Chris Archer deal (he broke into the rotation in ‘24 after TJ surgery) while Mitchell got a call to the show by the Bucs in 2022, hit .222 over parts of two seasons and is now playing in the Giants system. Jennings was with the Bucs through 2022 and is currently in the Texas organization.

2017 – Jameson Taillon returned to the bump five weeks after undergoing surgery for testicular cancer and worked five scoreless innings of five-hit, five-K ball to earn the win in the Pirates 7-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies at PNC Park in front of a welcome-back crowd of 16,320 rooters. The Bucco attack behind Jamo was balanced; Josh Harrison was the offensive leader with two hits, including a homer, two runs scored and two RBI.

2018 – The City of Pittsburgh declared “Dick Groat Day.” They held a ceremony for the Swissvale HS/Duke multi-sports star in Council Chambers and presented him with a resolution that, in part, reads that he “may be the greatest athlete to come out of Pittsburgh.” Groat was a five-time MLB All-Star who played nine seasons with the Pirates and the NL-MVP in 1960. He batted .290 during nine seasons with the Pirates and as a college ballplayer, led Duke to the College World Series as a senior. Dick also played for the NBA’s Fort Wayne Pistons in 1952, was the Helms National Player of the Year in 1951 as a Blue Devil and is in the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame – not too shabby for a 5’11” guard/shortstop.