PITTSBURGH --
\n\nI’m perfectly okay being the only starter giving up runs this year \uD83D\uDE02 these boys are too nasty!
— Jameson Taillon (@JTaillon19) April 6, 2019
“It fires me up. I think we all kind of feed off each other,” Musgrove said. “We’re competing in a sense of wanting to go out and top each other’s outings, but everyone’s pulling for each other. This is what we expect of each other every fifth day out there.”\n\nOn Friday, Musgrove did everything the Pirates came to expect of him last season.\n\nAlthough his first year with the Bucs was bookended by injuries, he proved to be a durable presence when he was on the mound by completing six innings in 14 of his 19 starts. Friday brought more of the same, as he cruised through seven innings during a pitchers' duel with Reds starter Sonny Gray.\n\nThe right-hander pounded the strike zone with his full arsenal of pitches. Sixty-three of his 88 pitches were strikes, and he got ahead of 19 of the 24 batters he faced with a first-pitch strike.\n\n“Ahead, aggressive, hunting outs, hunting contact,” manager Clint Hurdle said. “Then he gets eight punchouts on the other side of it because he’s making pitches that are looking like strikes out of the hand that are ending up in really good spots.”
Before Friday’s game, Musgrove and his fellow starters talked about the importance of being aggressive considering the Reds’ collective slump. He and catcher Francisco Cervelli put that plan into action.\n\n“They’re struggling a little bit to get their hits, so we didn’t want to make it any easier by letting them work counts,” Musgrove said. “We wanted to go right at them.”\n\nMusgrove said he didn’t feel sharp during a two-inning relief appearance last Sunday, and felt like he lacked his best fastball on Friday. But he consistently got ahead in the count then put hitters away with a mix of sliders, changeups and curveballs. He credited Cervelli for identifying his best plan of attack against the Reds' lineup.\n\nMusgrove’s slider was his most dominant offering, as Cincinnati whiffed on 12 of the 28 that he threw on the night.\n\n“The slider was my weapon of choice tonight. That was really good, sharper than it’s been in a while,” Musgrove said. “I think part of that’s because I didn’t have a great fastball, so I was really relying on the slider heavy -- which is something that I don’t really want to do, but when you’re out there competing, you do whatever you have to do to win. So if I had to throw 40 sliders, I would’ve thrown 40 sliders.”
All Musgrove needed to win was one run, and the Pirates finally broke through in the seventh. Gray retired 16 straight Pirates hitters between Cervelli’s two-out single in the first and the start of the seventh inning. Then Starling Marte singled to left, took second on a wild pitch and advanced to third on Cervelli’s groundout.\n\nMarte broke for home plate on Josh Bell’s grounder and had a chance to score when Jose Peraza’s throw pulled catcher Tucker Barnhart off the plate. Marte hesitated, however, giving Barnhart time to tag him and seemingly thwarting the Bucs’ lone scoring opportunity of the night.\n\nTheir fortunes changed in a hurry, though.