Jack Suwinski, Bryan Reynolds and Andrew McCutchen slug HRs as Pirates beat Rockies 5-2

DENVER (AP) — Jack Suwinski, Bryan Reynolds and Andrew McCutchen homered, Luis Ortiz worked five solid innings of relief and the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Colorado Rockies 5-2 on Friday night.

Ortiz (3-2) came on for opener Carmen Mlodzinski in the second inning and scattered seven hits in his five innings.

Ortiz was backed up by the long ball, with a big shot coming in the seventh off the bat of Suwinski, whose two-run blast off starter Ryan Feltner (1-6) gave Pittsburgh a 4-1 lead.

“Bryan got us on the board early, then Cutch to dead center and Jack’s was big,” manager Derek Shelton said. “It was big for Jack and us.”

Charlie Blackmon homered and doubled twice for Colorado, which has the third-worst record in the major leagues at 24-45, ahead of only Miami (23-46) and the Chicago White Sox (18-52).

Feltner left the game with an injury after going to a 3-2 count on Jared Triolo during the next at-bat. He pitched well through six innings despite giving up solo homers to Reynolds in the first and McCutchen in the sixth as Pittsburgh moved out to a 2-1 lead.

“I’m doing fine, just mid-back tightness,” Feltner said. “It was just one pitch, my back tightened up. It was late in the game, I was a little tired. I don’t anticipate any further issues.”

Feltner worked out of a jam in the first when he coaxed Ke’Bryan Hayes into an inning-ending double play, and got two more double plays in the second and fifth that kept Colorado close.

The Rockies got a run in the fifth when Ezequiel Tovar’s triple drove in Charlie Blackmon, but it came after Connor Joe threw home to double up Adael Amador, who tagged up on Brenton Doyle’s flyout.

“A good aggressive play where we’re trying to score and Connor just heaved it, a bang-bang play at the plate,” Colorado manager Bud Black said.

Pittsburgh added a run in the eighth when McCutchen doubled and scored on a single by Reynolds, who extended his hitting streak to 12 games.

“It’s kind of the way baseball goes,” Reynolds said. “Sometimes you’re good, sometimes you’re bad. I’m seeing the ball well right now.”

TRAINER’S ROOM

Pirates: INF Oneil Cruz (left ankle soreness) was a late scratch from the lineup. … C Henry Davis left the game with concussion-like symptoms in the seventh inning. … RHP Hunter Stratton (right triceps strain) was placed on the 15-day injured list.

Rockies: Placed C Elias Diaz (left calf strain) on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to Tuesday, and reinstated OF Nolan Jones from the IL. … OF Jake Cave was scratched from the lineup with a minor cut on his forehead suffered when he was hit with a line drive during batting practice. He received four stitches to close the wound.

UP NEXT

The Pirates will send RHP Jared Jones (4-5, 3.27 ERA) to the mound against Colorado LHP Ty Blach (2-4, 4.84) Saturday night in the second game of the three-game set.

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Colorado Rockies starting pitcher Ryan Feltner works against the Pittsburgh Pirates during the first inning of a baseball game Friday, June 14, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Carmen Mlodzinski watches a throw to a Colorado Rockies batter during the first inning of a baseball game Friday, June 14, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Pittsburgh Pirates' Rowdy Tellez watches a single off Colorado Rockies starting pitcher Ryan Feltner during the first inning of a baseball game Friday, June 14, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Colorado Rockies second baseman Adael Amador, left, throws to first base after putting out Pittsburgh Pirates' Jack Suwinski, right, at second on the front end of a double play hit into by Jared Triolo to end the top of the second inning of a baseball game Friday, June 14, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Jared Triolo, right, throws to first base to put out Colorado Rockies' Jacob Stallings in the second inning of a baseball game Friday, June 14, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Colorado Rockies' Charlie Blackmon doubles against Pittsburgh Pirates relief pitcher Luis L. Ortiz in the third inning of a baseball game Friday, June 14, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Pittsburgh Pirates relief pitcher Luis L. Ortiz works against the Colorado Rockies in the second inning of a baseball game Friday, June 14, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Pittsburgh Pirates' Bryan Reynolds watches his solo home run off Colorado Rockies starting pitcher Ryan Feltner during the first inning of a baseball game Friday, June 14, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

WASHINGTON (AP) — When Sen. Lindsey Graham’s phone number popped up on his call list, Sen. Chuck Schumer said his heart skipped a beat.

It was shortly after the 2012 presidential election and Republicans had lost badly to President Barack Obama.

Graham was calling with an outlandish proposal — “getting the band back together” — on a bipartisan plan for immigration reforms.

The move was classic Graham.

He has been called the “bridge.” The “dealmaker.” The senator at the center of all the action. And, more recently, “the Trump whisperer.”

Graham embodied a sort of institutional secret sauce that kept the Senate moving — and talking and arguing and laughing — with his hyperkinetic insistence on doing something when the place would otherwise seem destined to grind to a halt of atrophy and dysfunction.

After Graham’s sudden death over the weekend, it is unclear who, if anyone, will fill his role.

“Few have been able to frustrate and anger, amuse and engage me in a single conversation the way Lindsey could,” said Sen. Chris Coons, the Democrat from Delaware, who celebrated Graham’s birthday over dinner after the NATO summit in Turkey just days before the South Carolina senator died.

“I will miss having him as a partner in the Senate.”

Many lawmakers like to see themselves as central to the action, but Graham was among the few actually positioned squarely at the heart of virtually every debate. With his relentless ability to adapt to the political times, he gave voice to issues at home and abroad, and insisted on drawing others into the arena.

There was almost no bipartisan gang in Congress that didn't count Graham as a member — from the gang of eight he hatched with Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to pass immigration reform through the Senate in 2013, to his recent effort with colleagues to impose sanctions on Russia over its war against Ukraine.

“We didn't agree on everything in our bipartisan immigration proposal,” Schumer said Monday, “but we agreed it was worth trying, because doing nothing was worse.”

At a time when Congress is increasingly broken, with lawmakers unable to carry out its basic legislative functions, let alone act with civility toward one another, Graham played a unique role in bringing the sides together.

The heartfelt statements and stories shared on Graham's passing, from other prominent senators as well as the back benches of the House, reflected the breadth and depth of his partnerships.

“We talked at all hours of the day or night, and traveled through all kinds of weather, meeting dictators and democracy defenders,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who joined with Graham on the Russian sanctions bill.

Blumenthal said their views often differed, “but he listened to me,” the senator said, "and sought to bridge our differences.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., opened the day's session noting Graham's empty desk in the chamber, covered with a black drape and white flowers.

Graham's friendship, he said, “made this job richer and its burdens lighter.”

Not that Graham was always successful. There have been plenty of times when GOP senators walked out of their private lunch meetings during a particularly stalemated time in Congress, simply shaking their heads at the latest plan from Graham to break the gridlock.

Graham’s political shapeshifting brought his detractors, to be sure, as did his unbridled pursuit of military intervention abroad.

His bipartisan immigration work with Schumer and the Democrats left Graham almost permanently outcast by the nativist and anti-immigration flank of his party.

And most decisively, Graham’s rapprochement with Trump, after having declared their relationship finished following Trump's role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack at the Capitol, damaged the senator's credibility among some would-be partners.

Still, Graham’s proximity to Trump during the president's second term kept him central to the action, the one senators of both parties would lean on to understand the White House's view.

“Many of us consider him the Trump whisperer,” said Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who served as a manager in Trump’s first impeachment. Trump was later acquitted by the Senate.

“If we wanted to know what the president’s thinking was, or how he might be moved on something, you would go to Lindsey to discuss it,” Schiff said.

Graham's “voice is going to be really, really missed in terms of the relationship that Senate Republicans have with the president and his team,” Thune said on CNN, because "he was so good and so effective at talking to the president.”

In the chamber of 100 senators, with big personalities and bigger egos, Graham's self-effacing humor made it more bearable, helping to smooth the edges and bridge the divide.

He had “a wonderful sense of humor that he used to cut through the tension,” Schiff said.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., in her own statement, told a story of seeking Graham’s support for her bill to ensure visas for Afghan refugees.

“I remember standing outside of a little phone booth in the Republican cloakroom last year as he spoke with the Vice President, holding up a sign that said ‘Save the Afghans’ and he put the phone on hold and said ‘OK OK I will go on your bill even if it gets me in trouble,’” she said.

“I will miss him.”

FILE - Sen Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks to the media before the CBS News Republican presidential debate at the Peace Center, Saturday, Feb. 13, 2016, in Greenville, S.C. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt, File)

FILE - Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., leaves a meeting in the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., at the Capitol in Washington, Nov. 13, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)