Jun 22, 2013 By John Perrotto for The 3 min read

A long, long time ago, the Pirates and Cincinnati Reds had one of the most intense rivalries in the major leagues.

The teams met in the National League Championship Series in 1970, 1972, 1975 and 1979. There was also one of the most infamous bench-clearing brawls in Pirates’ history in 1974 that included Bucs reliever Darryl Patterson being bitten by Reds reliever Pedro Borbon and requiring a shot for tetanus.

Nobody on Pirates or Reds has needed to be checked for rabies so far this season. However, the 10 games between the teams located on each of the Ohio River have often been heated as a total of 18 batters have been hit.

Pirates pitchers have hit 10 batters and that is starting to get to the Reds. Pitcher Mat Latos complained about the hit batters after facing the Pirates this past week then called for Major League Baseball to take disciplinary action against Pittsburgh pitchers.

Latos’ comment had to bring a smile to the face of Pirates pitching coach Ray Searage.

One point Searage has emphasized since the first day of spring training has been for his pitchers to work inside and back hitters off the plate. His staff has been so cognizant of that message that the Pirates led the major leagues with 42 hit batsmen going into Friday night’s games at Anaheim against the Los Angeles Angels.

Pitching inside has also fostered some extra team unity. Some position players did not feel the pitching staff had their backs last season after center fielder Andrew McCutchen was hit by a pitch from Reds closer Aroldis Chapman in a game in August and the Pirates never retaliated.

The pitchers have more than made up for it this season and rekindled an old rivalry in the process.

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The Pirates’ Clint Hurdle is a strong candidate for National League Manager of the Year as he has helped his team keep pace in the National League Central with St. Louis and the Reds, two of the best teams in baseball.

However, there is still a sense among many baseball people that the Pirates will fold down the stretch. It is a sense well founded considering the Pirates were a combined 37-78 from Aug. 1 on during the last two seasons.

If Hurdle keep the Pirates in contention for six months instead of four and somehow gets his team to the playoffs, though, he will be a lock for NL Manager of the Year. The last man to win that award was Jim Leyland in 1992, though Gene Lamont was deserving of it in 1997.

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Pirates club president Frank Coonelly offered to sell me a used car following last Sunday’s win over the Dodgers at PNC Park. Of course, he was just trying to be funny after being likened to a used car salesman in this space last weekend.

If Coonelly actually did sell a used car, he would certainly text the news of the transaction to whoever his favorite reporter of the moment would be at one of the Pittsburgh daily newspapers before the paperwork reached the department of motor vehicles.