{"id":797736,"date":"2026-09-06T02:03:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T02:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/797736\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T02:03:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T02:03:18","slug":"yusei-kikuchi-throws-6-scoreless-innings-in-angels-win-over-pirates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/797736\/","title":{"rendered":"Yusei Kikuchi throws 6 scoreless innings in Angels’ win over Pirates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PITTSBURGH\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Yusei Kikuchi<\/a> pitched six scoreless innings and earned his first win of the season as the Angels beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-1<\/a> on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Kikuchi (1-5) gave up five hits and three walks while striking out six in his third start since returning Aug. 23 from left shoulder inflammation that kept him out since late April. The 35-year-old two-time All-Star last won in his final start last season, giving up one run in five innings as the Angels topped the Royals 3-2 on Sept. 24, 2025.<\/p>\n

Pirates starter Braxton Ashcraft (14-6) struck out nine, but allowed three runs on seven hits in five innings. The 26-year-old right-hander struck out seven while allowing one hit through 3\u2153 innings before Wade Meckler doubled into shallow left field with one out in the fourth. Mois\u00e9s Ballesteros hit a sharp two-out single under the glove of second baseman Nick Gonzales, scoring Meckler from second.<\/p>\n

Josh Lowe led off the fifth with a 410-foot shot to center field for his 11th homer of the season. Denzer Guzman followed with a single to left, moved to second on Adam Frazier\u2019s sacrifice bunt and extended the lead to 3-0 by scoring on the first of Zach Neto\u2019s three singles.<\/p>\n

Esmerlyn Valdez walked and Bryan Reynolds singled to start the sixth for Pittsburgh. Kikuchi then struck out Oneil Cruz, forced Nick Gonzales into a force out and erased the threat by getting Rafael Flores Jr. to fly out to center.<\/p>\n

The Angels (54-88) tacked on three runs in the seventh. Mike Trout hit an RBI single through the left side of the infield and Meckler drove in two more with a double to right-center.<\/p>\n

Reynolds hit a two-out home run, his 16th of the season and first since July 28 for Pittsburgh (70-73). It was a 421-foot shot over the right-field wall in the eighth.<\/p>\n

Up next: Pirates RHP Paul Skenes (9-11, 3.97 ERA) starts Sunday\u2019s series finale against Angels RHP Walbert Ure\u00f1a (9-9, 2.85).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Yusei Kikuchi pitched six scoreless innings and earned his first win of the season as the Angels beat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2390],"tags":[291,5,5343,3930,1165,446,3223,774,56,3224,3222,603,4,10,776,3215,2099,1479,97649,19694,10718,51590,2022,809],"class_list":["post-797736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles-angels","tag-angels","tag-baseball","tag-bryan-reynolds","tag-hit","tag-la","tag-la-angels","tag-laangels","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-angels","tag-losangeles","tag-losangelesangels","tag-mike-trout","tag-mlb","tag-pirates","tag-pittsburgh","tag-run","tag-scoreless-innings","tag-season","tag-second-baseman-nick-gonzales","tag-shot","tag-single","tag-wade-meckler","tag-win","tag-yusei-kikuchi"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117221641680804218","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}