Streak Stopper | Pirates 5 Giants 0

The most frustrating stretch of Pirates baseball in years has finally ended.

All the credit goes to Charlie Morton tonight. After throwing 7 scoreless innings in his last start and getting zero run support, Morton came back and was even better tonight, throwing 8 shut out innings. This time he got some run support and the Pirates won by a handful.

Garrett Jones had 4 hits and has his batting average up to .249 on the year. Neil Walker drove in a run in the first, Ryan Ludwick added 2 hits and 2 RBI, Andrew McCutchen got 2 hits, and Pedro Alvarez, Brandon Wood, and Derrek Lee all added base knocks.

Morton was just fantastic all night. In fact, ground Chuck did not allow a walk or a hit to a right handed batter all night. The Giants had 4 left-handed batters in the lineup tonight, and they collected all 6 hits for San Francisco. He has now thrown 17 innings without allowing a run, which is absolutely huge for the Pirates going forward this year and even into next year. The Pirates are exponentially better when they have a guy like Morton throwing every 5th day like he is now.

An inning from Jose Veras was all the Bucs needed from the bullpen tonight to get the win, and he put up a 0 while allowing no hits and walking one.

A big win for the Pirates. Not only did they end the losing streak that pretty much killed their season, but they got it on the road against the defending World Series Champions in game 1 of a 3-game series. They still have a long ways to go to get back into the playoff picture, but it is very nice to know that they are still capable of winning a baseball game.

They'll try to start a winning streak tomorrow as James McDonald takes on Madison Bumgarner.