Nick

Gonzales

Lowe takes a seat with lefty Shota Imanaga taking the ball for Chicago in this one. It’ll be Nick Gonzales taking over at the keystone and hitting second in this one. The 32-year-old veteran has managed to stay mostly healthy and has put together an outstanding Pirates debut with 21 homers and 65 RBI across 427 plate appearances.

Mangum went 2-for-5 with an RBI and his 19th stolen base of the season during the front-end of the twin bill. He’ll undergo further evaluation and there should be an update on his status prior to Friday’s series opener against the Cubs. The 30-year-old has emerged as Pittsburgh’s primary leadoff hitter since rookie Konnor Griffin hit the injured list earlier this month. It’ll be Billy Cook taking over in center field with Nick Gonzales moving up to the leadoff spot.

The third run came in the 10th, as Gonzales was the automatic runner after grounding out to end the ninth. He came around to score on a Jared Triolo single, and the Pirates added on with another RBI single from Jake Mangum. Prior to that, Gonzales singled and scored on Jacob Gonzalez’s homer in the fifth and then delivered a solo shot off Gerrit Cole in the seventh inning. It’s the second time in his career that he’s scored three runs in a game. He’s hitting .311/.370/.414 with six homers over 395 plate appearances. That average is 54 points better than his career mark of .257 in 923 plate appearances coming into the season.

He took Kyle Backhus deep in the ninth inning to extend a 5-1 lead, on a breaking ball that he just nudged over the left-field fence in Citizen’s Bank Park. Gonzales just keeps hitting -- he’s batting .322 in his last 30 games -- and while he isn’t generating a ton of speed, he’s got four homers over that span to go along with 22 runs scored and 16 RBI. Gonzales remains a fringe starter in most leagues, but if he’s going to hit this well going forward there are going to be fantasy teams he can help.

Gonzales didn’t have a very good night in the field at third base, but he did single three times off Zack Wheeler to help make up for it. He’s batting an even .300 on the year and doing it mostly with singles; just 15 of his 90 hits have gone for extra bases and his isolated slugging percentage is .073, down from a career mark of .118.

After nearly four weeks away due to a forearm strain, Griffin starting at shortstop and leading off in Friday’s game against the Reds. His return means that Nick Gonzales and Jared Triolo will go back to fighting for time at third. Gonzales figures to get most of the starts, but he is sitting in favor of Triolo tonight.

The homer off Michael Lorenzen was just Gonzales’s third of the season, but his .293/.342/.374 line is solid, and even without a lot of power, he has 35 RBI in 73 games. In fact, he has more RBI and runs scored (40) in 292 plate appearances this year than he did in 408 plate appearances last year (30 RBI, 39 runs scored).

One fire lately, two more knocks here extended Gonzales’ hitting streak to eight games with multiple hits in four of those. His fourth inning double helped catalyze the only real rally the Pirates had in this game and he’s now up to a .315 batting average and .759 OPS on the season as an everyday player for the Pirates.

The homer was his first of the year, a two-run shot off Zebby Matthews that put Pittsburgh up 4-0 in the third. Gonzales has been operating as the team’s primary third baseman, having started 14 of their past 15 games. He’s hit as high as fourth this week, but Ryan O’Hearn’s return dropped him to fifth on Sunday. For fantasy purposes, he’s mostly provided empty batting average given his unique .303/.356/.364 slash line.

Gonzales was back at third base after leaving Thursday’s series finale against the Cubs early with left knee discomfort. It doesn’t appear to be a concern moving forward.