The Pirates ran through a lot of their bullpen yesterday and needed a deep start by James McDonald, but they didn't get anything close to it. J-Mac threw over thirty pitches in the first inning and finished the game with over seventy pitches in just four innings. He let up a run on three hits, struck out two and walked one. The recently called up Brad Lincoln pitched three solid innings of relief for the Pirates. He allowed one hit, a leadoff triple to Aaron Hill in the sixth, and struck out four while walking three. Lincoln found a way to get out of the inning after allowing the leadoff triple. He struck out Jason Kubel, intentionally walked Miguel Montero, and then got Ryan Roberts to ground into a five-four-three double play. Chris Resop and Tony Watson combined for a scoreless eighth, with Watson picking up a double play ball. With Joel Hanrahan unable to pitch for the second straight day, Juan Cruz converted his second save in as many days to preserve another hard fought win.
The Pirates got men on first and third with one out to start the ballgame, but missed out on a golden opportunity. Neil Walker hit a solid groundball up the middle, but since McCutchen was stealing the shortstop was there to turn an easy double play. Pedro Alvarez hit a solo homerun to right field off of Daniel Hudson in the seventh inning to tie the game up. It was Pedro's second of the year and hopefully he can get on track after that. The Bucs saw some two out lightning (after seeing a lot last night) picking up an RBI in the eighth to give them the lead. Clint Barmes and Andrew McCutchen singled and Neil Walker followed up with a bloop single to right field scoring Barmes for the lead, which would lead on to be the winning run.
It was nice to see the Bucs win at least one of the series on this road trip and it should be nice to have an off day tomorrow, as the Pirates open up a home stand against the St. Louis Cardinals Friday night.