Blown Out | Phillies 10 Pirates 3

There was some serious hype heading into last night's Pirates/Phillies game, with Charlie Morton and Roy Halladay facing off. However, it was a one sided game from the beginning as the Phillies scored 8 runs in the first 2 innings and Pirate fans feel like it was early 2010 all over again with Morton just getting hit around all over the ballpark.

After the first 3, the game was pretty much over with Halladay on the mound and the Pirates current offensive funk. The Bucs didn't score until the 8th inning and the defending National League Cy Young lowered his season ERA to 2.44 with 7 shutout, 1 hit innings. Pedro Ciriaco was able to open up the scoring for Pittsburgh in the 8th as he got a rare at bat and collected his first hit of the season in the form of a 2-run double. The hit raised his batting average 143 points, from .000 to .143; tonight he was the Pirates best player. Xavier Paul had 2 hits and Michael McKenry was the only other Pirate to contribute a hit.

The thin bullpen was somewhat saved by getting 2 innings each from Tony Watson and Jason Grilli. Watson lowered his ERA to 1.64 on the season and hasn't given up a run since July 2nd (11 scoreless innings). Grilli gave up 2 runs in his 2 innings of work including a home run to Jimmy Rollins.

It certainly wasn't how the Pirates envisioned opening up this series, but the good news is that Major League Baseball is reporting that Saturday's game will start with the score tied at zero, so the Pirates have a decent chance. Cliff Lee is on the hill for the Phillies, which is bad news, but he has been struggling this month, with a 4.97 ERA in 4 starts and 25.1 innings pitched. Maybe the Pirates can take advantage of that, but I wouldn't count on it. They will need a good pitching performance from James McDonald, which you can count on because he has been just money recently. Should be a good game and a win will do a lot to get the bad taste out of the mouth from Friday's loss.