PITTSBURGH — The Pirates apparently came into Monday’s series opener against the Los Angeles Dodgers with just four readily available relief pitchers.
The Pirates used A.J. Schugel, Daniel Hudson, and Juan Nicasio in the seventh, eighth, and ninth and got two scoreless innings out of Joaquin Benoit before Dovydas Neverauskas gave up a solo home run to Yasiel Puig in the top of the 12th to propel the Dodgers to a 6-5 victory.
George Kontos suffered an injury in Williamsport on Sunday and was unable to pitch, while Felipe Rivero was unavailable after throwing 30 pitches over the weekend.