PITTSBURGH -- Joe Musgrove is more than a little bit old school. He’s a pitcher who views himself as an athlete above all, someone who enjoys fielding his position and genuinely wants to hit. He throws six different pitches, the kind of varied approach that’s going out of style. So he looked right at home as the Bucs celebrated their 1979 World Series championship team in all-black throwback uniforms on Saturday night at PNC Park.

Musgrove tied his season high with eight strikeouts, allowed only two hits over six innings, ripped a one-out double to spark a three-run inning and even slid head-first into home plate -- a suitably old-school performance in the Pirates’ 5-1 win over the Phillies before a sellout crowd of 38,380.

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“I tried to be old-fashioned there,” Musgrove said, smiling. “That’s kind of how I play the game. I get it a lot, that I remind them of old-school players and stuff. Everything was really cool tonight. There was a different energy in the air.”

After celebrating their championship-winning “Fam-a-lee,” the Pirates turned in their best overall effort of the season's second half. Saturday was just their second victory since the All-Star break, as they moved to 46-51 on the year. It all began with Musgrove.

The right-hander was coming off of a frustrating outing in St. Louis, where the Cardinals made him work by fouling off pitch after pitch during his 4 2/3 innings. Despite not throwing a between-starts bullpen session because his outing was bumped up a day, Musgrove commanded his entire six-pitch arsenal to efficiently put away the Phillies on Saturday night.

“You don’t see it that often anymore. There’s a handful of guys that still do it, and he’s one of them,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said. “He has the ability to pitch. The art of pitching, we saw it again tonight with him.”

According to Statcast, 30 of Musgrove’s 98 pitches were four-seam fastballs and 10 more were sinkers. Working with catcher Jacob Stallings for the fifth straight time, Musgrove threw 23 sliders, 17 cutters, 13 curveballs and five changeups. He finished off his strikeouts with three different pitches: the four-seamer, slider and curveball.

“We had a really good plan. Stalls was spot-on with everything,” Musgrove said. “It makes my job a lot easier when I trust my catcher to call the game. It’s almost like he’s the brains and I’m the muscle. You just tell me where to throw it, and I’ll throw it there.”

Musgrove would not be deterred by yet another rain delay, either. A sudden shower stopped the game with a runner on third and one out in the fifth, but Musgrove returned to the mound after a 28-minute delay -- during which, appropriately, fans watched Game 7 of the 1979 World Series -- and struck out Nick Williams and Scott Kingery to end the inning.

“When you see him start getting the swing-and-miss and the punchouts, he’s got his stuff and it’s electric,” Hurdle said. “We’ve seen other outings where there are foul balls and balls in play and he gets stretched out a little bit. He showed up in a really good place tonight.”

Not just on the mound. Musgrove helped out at the plate, too. The Bucs entered the night averaging only 2.7 runs per game since the All-Star break, but on Saturday they looked more like the team that leads the National League in batting average this month, racking up 13 hits.

Facing Phillies starter Zach Eflin with one out in the third, Musgrove pulled the first pitch he saw to left field for a 98.7 mph double. When Bryan Reynolds knocked a two-out single to right, Musgrove tested Bryce Harper’s arm by speeding home, culminating in a head-first slide while extending his left arm to touch the plate.

“You see some very special athleticism,” Hurdle said. “The head-first slide at home plate, that’s just the way he’s going to play and the way he’s played since he’s been here.”

So there isn’t any sort of unspoken rule that a starting pitcher shouldn’t slide head-first into home plate?

Only one.

“Just don’t be out,” Musgrove said, grinning.

The Pirates kept the hits coming, as Starling Marte ripped an RBI double to left -- one of his three hits on the night -- then scored on Josh Bell’s bloop single to center. Marte also helped produce the Pirates’ final run of the night. He legged out a hustle double in the seventh against reliever Mike Morin, tagged up to take third on Bell’s flyout to center field and scored on Colin Moran’s hard-hit double to right-center.

Afterward, Marte joked that Musgrove hits “a lot better” than all of his teammates. But he was serious in his appreciation of the starting pitcher’s athleticism and old-school effort.

“It means a lot to us as teammates when we see our pitchers go up to the box with that aggressive mentality, that all-in mentality, and come out hitting line drives or doing whatever it takes to get on base,” Marte said through interpreter Mike Gonzalez. “It means a lot to us. That’s what drives us even more to continue to support them and to have their backs.”