By: Rebecca Serad, Sports Talk Philly Staff 
Final: Philadelphia Phillies 7, Pittsburgh Pirates 0 ❖ Attendance: 19,071
PHILADELPHIA, Pa — The Philadelphia Phillies (11-7) began their ten game homestand on a positive note with tonight's victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates (12-7). Phillies starter Jake Arrieta was on top of his game and had fantastic command. The righty only allowed one hit and two walks and struck out ten batters over seven innings. Arrieta reached double digits in strikeouts for the 14th time in his career and for the 1st time as a Phillie. Yacksel Rios and Victor Arano each threw a scoreless inning. Arano extended his streak of consecutive retired batters to 25.
Normally, when a team strikes out 16 times in a game, they lose. That wasn't the case for the Phillies tonight. In addition to the cringe-worthy number of strikeouts, there was also timely hitting. Five of the Phillies' seven runs were scored with two outs. Rhys Hoskins extended his hitting streak to six games with his homer in the second. Carlos Santana ended his 0-17 stretch with a single in the fifth inning, and Scott Kingery ended his 0-11 stretch with a single in the seventh. Cesar Hernandez's RBI single in the second inning was big for multiple reasons. First and foremost, it cleared the bases, and it was the first single to knock in three runs for a Phillies player since 1978. However, it also marked an important milestone in Hernandez's career: 500 hits.
WP: Jake Arrieta (2-0, 2.04 ERA) ❖ LP: Jameson Taillon (2-1, 2.86 ERA)
Hub: Game Summary ❖ Starting Pitchers ❖ At the Plate ❖ Bullpen ❖ What's Next
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | |
| PIT | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| PHI |
0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | X | 7 | 9 | 0 |
The Phillies struck first in tonight's ballgame. Left fielder Rhys Hoskins led off the bottom of the second inning with a solo homer just inside the left field foul pole to give the Phils a 1-0 lead. Nick Williams followed with a walk. He stole second during the at-bat of Scott Kingery. Kingery joined him on the basepaths after being hit by a pitch. J.P. Crawford reached on a bunt single to load the bases with no outs for Jorge Alfaro. He struck out for the first out of the inning. Pitcher Jake Arrieta also struck out to bring Cesar Hernandez to the plate with two outs. He came up with the clutch hit that the Phillies needed: a single up the middle. Williams and Kingery scored easily. The big surprise was Crawford scoring from first. Third base coach Dusty Wathan noticed that the Pirates weren't paying attention to Crawford and waved him home. Crawford beat the delayed throw home and slid in safely. During the at-bat of Carlos Santana, Hernandez stole second base. Santana walked to keep the inning going. Odubel Herrera singled to left field to score Hernandez and move Santana up to third. That marked the end of Pirates ace Jameson Taillon's outing. After breezing through the first inning with just nine pitches, he threw an astounding 43 pitches before being taken out of the ballgame. Hoskins came to the plate for the second time in the inning, this time against reliever Tyler Glasnow, and struck out for the final out.
The Phils added on in the fifth. Santana led off the inning with a single to second. He moved up to second on a wild pitch during Herrera's at-bat. Herrera followed with his second RBI single of the game to give the Phillies a 6-0 lead. Hoskins followed with a walk to put runners on first and second with no outs. Williams and Kingery both struck out to bring Crawford to the plate. He singled to left field to score Herrera from second. Alfaro lined out to end the inning. The Phillies had scored more than enough runs in support of Arrieta to take home the win.
| IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | HR | ERA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jameson Taillon | 1.2 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2.86 |
| Jake Arrieta | 7.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 10 | 0 | 2.04 |
Pirates
- Francisco Cervelli: 1-2, .278 AVG
- Max Moroff: 1-1, .333 AVG
- Starling Marte: 0-2, .282 AVG
Phillies
- Rhys Hoskins: 1-3, R, HR, RBI, .327 AVG
- Cesar Hernandez: 2-4, R, 3 RBI, .286 AVG
- Odubel Herrera: 2-4, R, 2 RBI, .333 AVG
Pirates
- Tyler Glasnow (2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th): 3.2 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 7 SO, 0 HR, 5.84 ERA
- Richard Rodriguez (6th, 7th, 8th): 2.2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 6 SO, 0 HR, 0.00 ERA
Phillies
- Yacksel Rios (8th): 1.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 SO, 0 HR, 1.50 ERA
- Victor Arano (9th): 1.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 SO, 0 HR, 0.00 ERA
- Friday, April 20, 2018: vs. Pittsburgh Pirates, 7:05 p.m.
- Philadelphia – Citizens Bank Park
- RHP Ivan Nova (2-1, 4.88 ERA) vs. RHP Ben Lively (0-1, 5.87 ERA)
- TV: NBCSP+; Radio: SportsRadio 94 WIP, WSAN AM 1470, WTTM 1680
