PITTSBURGH -- Amidst his team’s offensive struggles, manager Derek Shelton theorized over the last couple weeks that the Pirates needed one fortunate break in order for Pittsburgh’s offense to come back to life. On Friday, that break arrived.

With the help of an error by Diamondbacks third baseman Josh Rojas, the Pirates produced a game-altering seven-run fourth inning against NL Cy Young favorite Zac Gallen, setting the stage for a blowout 13-3 win at PNC Park. They’ve won back-to-back games for the first time since late April and three of their last four, showing flashes of the team that took the league by storm last month.

"The breaks help,” said Josh Palacios, who recorded his first three hits of the season. “There's a lot of things in baseball you can't control. You can have a good at-bat, you hit the ball hard, but you can't control where it goes, can't control if the guy catches it. So, when those things work in our favor, it's great and you always want to take advantage, because sometimes they're not going to work in our favor.

“So, it was great to have that tonight and it was great to have all the guys putting the ball in play well. Good things like that happen when you put the ball in play."

Before Rojas’ blunder, the Pirates had already gotten a couple licks in against Gallen. In the second inning, Carlos Santana and Ke'Bryan Hayes hit back-to-back doubles to generate the game’s first run. With one out in the fourth, Tucupita Marcano walked, Ji Hwan Bae doubled, then Palacios knocked them both in with an opposite-field single with his first hit as a Pirate. Gallen entered play with a 1.16 ERA and 60 strikeouts in his last seven starts, so the Pirates would’ve gladly taken three runs through four innings.

Then, the error.

Immediately following Palacios, Rojas was unable to reel in Austin Hedges’ 97.9 mph hot shot to the hot corner, allowing Hedges to reach base and putting runners on first and second with one out. The Pirates caught a similar break on Sunday against the Orioles when Bryan Reynolds struck out swinging and reached base on a wild pitch, setting the stage for a three-run inning. They didn’t waste that opportunity, and they wouldn’t waste this one either.

Andrew McCutchen and Reynolds drew back-to-back walks, the latter of which drove in a run. Jack Suwinski drove in two runs with a double, and after Santana struck out, Hayes drove in two runs of his own with a single. Thanks in part to Rojas’ miscue, the Pirates drove in seven runs (four earned) in the fourth, the most runs Gallen has allowed in a single inning in his career.

The Pirates continued to tack on from there en route to a blowout win. In the fifth, Reynolds hit his first home run since April 7, a three-run blast that pushed Pittsburgh’s lead to 10 runs. In the eighth, leading by eight runs, the Pirates tacked on two more runs against position player Jose Herrera. Palacios described facing Herrera as “the bonus cherry on top.”

"I think it gives us a lot of confidence,” Palacios said. “We had some ups, we had some downs, we had a little bit of an offensive drought for a little while but it just reminds the guys we have a lot of hitters. We can hit and if we stick to our guns and stick to our process, we'll be alright."

It was an evening in which just about everything went right for the Pirates. McCutchen, Hayes, Bae and Palacios each totaled three hits. Johan Oviedo, pitching in front of his family for the first time in Pittsburgh, threw six innings of one-run ball with seven strikeouts. Yohan Ramirez and Colin Holderman looked stellar, each racking up two strikeouts in their relief appearances. The only downer was right-hander Duane Underwood Jr. exiting in the seventh inning due to right forearm tightness.

With Friday night's decisive victory, the Pirates are tied with the Brewers for first place in the NL Central. Should they win at least one of their next two, they can secure their first series victory since late April. They’ve played solid ball over the last couple days, but as the opener showed, the breaks help, too.