Loss #99 came at the hands of two men who had done much damage to the Pirates in the past. Albert Pujols hit two homers and knocked in three runs. Jeff Suppan allowed just one run over five innings to get the win.
Pirates starter Brian Burres put runners on in each of the first two innings with no damage done. The third inning would be less kind. He walked Skip Schumaker to start the inning. One out later, Pujols hit his first homer of the game. Matt Holliday, Nick Stavinoha and Dan Descalso hit back-to-back-to-back doubles to score two more runs and chase Burres from the game. Steven Jackson got out of the jam without more runs being scored.
Chan Ho Park wasn’t as successful in the fourth inning. With two outs, Joe Mather singled and Park plunked Pujols. Holliday singled to drive in Mather and move Pujols to third. Park uncorked a wild one, allowing Pujols to score.
Pittsburgh got on the board in the fourth as Pedro Alvarez doubled in Neil Walker, who had singled. That was all Jeff Suppan would give up.
St. Louis added one in the fifth (a Schumaker RBI single off Sean Gallagher) and two more in the sixth (a solo jack from Pujols and an RBI single from Descalso against Wil Ledezma).
Trailing 9-1 in the seventh, Pittsburgh loaded the bases with no one out but only got one run (a sac flly from Andrew McCutchen) as both Andy LaRoche and Jose Tabata struck out.
Burres allowed four runs and retired seven hitters. He gave up six hits and two walks. Suppan was pulled after giving up four hits and a run in five innings. He struck out two and walked two.
The Good
Walker and Cedeno each had two hits.
Joe Martinez tossed two innings of shutout baseball.
The Bad
Snapping the five game streak.
Burres getting hit hard – of his six hits allowed, four were for extra bases.
The Rest
Suppan is now 16-3 in his career against Pittsburgh. Both of his wins in 2010 have come against the Pirates. He is also 12-2 career against Milwaukee. He is 108-137 versus everyone else.
This was the first time Burres had faced St. Louis.
This was the sixth time in 2010 and 39th time in his career that Pujols had multiple homers in the same game. Despite his great success against the Pirates, this was the first game since 2006 in which he hit two or more dingers against the Buccos.
Cedeno has hits in seven of his last eight games.
Lastings Milledge has only started twice in September.
