PITTSBURGH-Once wasn't enough for Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco. They hit back-to-back home runs for the second time Saturday, and the Pittsburgh Pirates won the second game of a doubleheader 6-2 over the Milwaukee Brewers.
With the Pirates leading 3-0 in the eighth, Marte hit his 13th homer over the left-field wall before Polanco hit his 16th to right-center to make it 5-0. They also hit consecutive home runs in the first inning of the Pirates' 2-1 win earlier Saturday.
"Just doing me," Polanco said. "Be ready to hit, because we are aggressive hitters. Just seeing the ball and hitting it. Not thinking too much."
Marte, who extended his hitting streak to 11 games with a ground-rule double in the sixth, applauded while jogging outside of Pittsburgh's dugout as Polanco rounded the bases.
"As soon as he hit the ball, I knew it was a homer," Marte said. "So, I was happy and running to the front of the dugout."
In his second major league start, Clay Holmes (1-1) allowed no runs on four hits with six strikeouts and two walks for his first win. The rookie right-hander lasted 2 1/3 innings in his previous start, when he surrendered four runs on five hits in a 6-4 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 4.
"It was nice to be back out there, be on the mound and be able to make some pitches early," Holmes said. "That kind of helped me settle down and get into a groove. Once I started getting into a groove, things started coming together and rolling. I started attacking the zone and the results came."
The Pirates have won the first four games of their five-game series against the Brewers.
Pittsburgh had two other players' homer in the nightcap. Max Moroff opened the scoring with a solo shot off Brent Suter (8-6) in the third inning. Jordan Luplow homered in the sixth and
eighth.
Suter, who returned from the 10-day disabled list (left forearm tightness), went five innings for Milwaukee, allowing one run on two hits with three strikeouts and one walk.
"I felt good," Suter said. "Fastball command maybe wasn't as great as I would want it to be, but off-speed felt fine out of the hand. I felt healthy."
Tyler Glasnow walked the bases loaded with one out in the eighth before Michael Feliz got Tyler Saladino to fly out and Villar to strike out.
Jesus Aguilar singled off Feliz with the bases loaded in the ninth to cut the lead to 6-2 before Felipe Vazquez came in to get the final out with a strikeout on three pitches. That was his second save of the day and 23rd of the season.
"We're not scoring runs," Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. "We just didn't get any hits with men in scoring position. We had a few opportunities, actually. We hit a bunch of singles today. We had singles and walks today. ... Every offense needs extra-base hits, some kind of extra-base hits, to produce the runs. We got two extra-base hits in two games."