Charlie Morton struggled and didn’t make it for the third inning bell. Jake Arrieta lasted five innings to get his ninth win as the Orioles batted around in the first inning to support their starting pitcher.
Morton started off poorly. The first four hitters reached base, with Adam Jones knocking in J.J. Hardy and Nick Markakis followed by Derrek Lee knocking in Jones with a single. After a one out walk to Mark Reynolds, Felix Pie whiffed for the second out of the inning. But Robert Andino and Jake Arrieta connected on consecutive two out singles to score two more runs, making it 5-0.
Baltimore added another pair in the second. Markakis singled. Lee reached on an error from Josh Harrison. Matt Wieters doubled in Markakis and Reynolds lofted a sac fly to plate Lee.
Pittsburgh got one off Arrieta in the bottom of the second. Garrett Jones walked leading off. He was erased on a force play grounder from Xavier Paul. But Paul promptly stole second and scored on a Ronny Cedeno double.
Daniel McCutchen relieved Morton to start the third and he gave up one run. Andino singled and was bunted to second by Arrieta. Hardy knocked him in with a single.
After that, the Pittsburgh bullpen stiffened. McCutchen, Danile Moskos, Tim Wood and Joel Hanrahan (who needed work) limited Baltimore to just four hits over the next six innings to keep the Orioles’ tallies stagnant.
The Pirates offense continued to sputter. The Pirates scored two more in the fourth with McCutchen (who singled) and Jones (who walked) scoring on a single from Paul and an RBI grounder from Cedeno. But that was all the Pirates would get. Arrieta was lifted after five and Mike Gonzalez, Jason Berken and Kevin Gregg combined to throw four innings of two hit relief.
Morton got six outs and gave up eight runs (seven earned) on eight hits and one walk. He struck out four. Arrieta allowed three hits and three runs in five innings. He walked two and struck out two.
The Good
No complaints about the bullpen – seven innings with only one run allowed.
McCutchen had three hits.
The Bad
Morton was off. The official recap blamed fatigue due to his large number of innings tossed this year.
Bucs collected five hits.
The defense commited three errors.
The Rest
The hit from Arrieta was the first of his career. He came into the game hitless in three career at bats.
Neither starter had faced their opponent before this game.
This was McCutchen’s four three hits game of June.
Mark Reynolds walked three times for the fifth time in his career. The last was 4/28/10. No Pirate hitter has been walked three times in one game in 2011. The last Buc to accomplish the feat was Pedro Alvarez on 8/15/10.
