It wasn’t pretty. The offense relied heavily on an error by Orioles second baseman Blake Davis, who was making his Major League debut. Kevin Correia was nicked enough to not have a 1-2-3 inning, but danced out of enough trouble to last six frames. The 5-4 win puts the Pirates back at .500.
The Pirates drew first blood off rookie starter Zach Britton. He gave up three straight singles to start the game. Jose Tabata led off with a single and move to second on a base knock from Josh Harrison. Andrew McCutchen’s single drove in the first run of the game and moved Harrison to third. Neil Walker bounced into a double play that scored Harrison and made it 2-0.
Baltimore scored the next four runs with a pair of two run frames in the third and fourth. Correia gave up consecutive singles to start the third to Britton (who wound up with a pair of hits), J.J. Hardy and Nick Markakis. The safety from Markakis made it 2-1 and Adam Jones grounded out to score Hardy with the tying run. Luke Scott and Mark Reynolds started the fourth with consecutive singles. But Correia retired Davis and Britton to bring up Hardy with two outs. He delivered a two run double to make it 4-2.
The Pirates got one back in the home half of the fourth. McCutchen doubled to start the inning and moved to third when Britton unleashed a wild pitch. Walker’s ground ball scored him, cutting the lead to a single run.
The game turned in the fifth inning. Brandon Wood and Michael McKenry reached on singles to begin the inning. Correia dropped down a bunt that moved both runners up. Tabata whiffed. Harrison’s sharply hit grounder went through the legs of Davis and both runners scored, making it 5-4.
Pittsburgh used Daniel Moskos, Chris Resop and Jose Veras to get out of the seventh inning that saw Markakis lead off with a single but ultimately get stranded. Veras tossed a 1-2-3 eighth and Hanrahan pitched a perfect ninth to end it.
Correia allowed four runs on nine hits in six innings. He walked one and struck out five. He is tied for the lead in wins in the National League with nine. Britton was the loser. He gave up seven hits and three earned runs in six innings. He also stuck out five and walked one. Hanrahan notched his 20th save.
The Good
.500!
The bullpen continues to be very effective.
McCutchen had two hits, a run scored and an RBI.
The Bad
The offense just eight hits and should’ve been limited to three runs.
The Rest
This was the first appearance for both pitchers against the respective opponent.
Markakis has a 13 game hitting streak.
Markakis was the seventh pick of the first round in the 2003 draft. The eighth pick was Paul Maholm. The 12th pick was Lastings Milledge.
McCutchen came into the game hitting .397 in June.
