Ricky Nolasco pitched shutout baseball for six innings and also knocked in two runs with two hits. Zach Duke was undone by a bad inning. The Pirates winning streak is over at one.
Nolasco faced the minimum through five innings. In the sixth he loaded the bases on two singles and a walk before getting Neil Walker to strike out to end the inning. He gave up back-to-back singlest to start the seventh and was pulled in favor of Jose Veras. Job done as Veras got Ryan Doumit on a fly ball and Chris Snyder hit into an inning ending double play.
Duke ran into a roadblock in the fifth. He gave up a one out RBI singled to Nolasco for the game’s first run. That was the first of four straight singles – the last of which came from Gaby Sanchez and knocked in run number two and run number three. Dan Uggla hit a sac fly for the second out and the fourth run of the inning. Nolasco hit a two out RBI double in the next frame to put Florida up 5-0. Nolasco’s double was the last pitch Duke would throw on the night.
Duke went 5-2/3 and gave up five runs on nine hits. He struck out four and walked two. Nolasco whiffed nine in his six innings. He gave up just five singles and no walks. Veras and Clay Hensley combined to pitch the final three innings of the shutout.
Chan Ho Park gave up a late run on a double from Logan Morrison for the final tally of the game.
The Good
Jose Tabata and Pedro Alvarez each had two hits.
The Bad
Duke was hit hard.
The Rest
Duke was winless (0-3) coming into the game against Florida and remains so. Nolasco moves to 3-3 against Pittsburgh.
Nolasco now has 16 career RBI and four games with two RBI.
Pirates whiffed 11 times. 25th time in 2010 that the Pirates batters reached double digits in strikeouts. That happened 28 times in 2009.
Ronny Paulino was 1-4 and is now 2-12 against his former club.
Morrison has a nine game hitting streak.
