Our Battlin’ Buccos traveled out west for their first road trip of the 2010 season, kicking off their road schedule against the Arizona Diamondbacks for a 3-game series.
Friday, April 9: The Pirates’ Charlie Morton made his first start of the season in Game of the series against a Diamondbacks club that completely owned the Bucs a year ago. Unfortunately for Morton and the Buccos, he couldn’t even make it out of the 4th inning, giving up 8 runs on 9 hits, including a 2-run single to former Pirate Adam Laroche and a grand slam by Chris Young in the 3rd inning. To make matters worse, the Pirates’ bats were basically non-existent on Friday night. While they tallied 8 hits in the game, most of them were in 2-out situations or after the game had already been decided. Both Aki Iwamura and Garrett Jones slated 2 hits a-piece, while Jeff Clement had the Bucs’ only RBI, driving in Lastings Milledge in the 6th inning. Still, it was an embarrassing effort by the Pirates, and their losing ways against the Diamondbacks continued on Friday night with a final score of 9-1.
Saturday, April 10: Zach Duke made his second start of the season on Saturday night, and as was the case in the Pirates’ opener last Monday, he pitched a clean, good game. While it wasn’t a monumental performance, Duke picked up his 2nd win in as many tries in the 2nd game of this series, going 7 innings while giving up 2 runs on 4 hits, which tallies his ERA at 3.00. The bullpen, unlike the previous 2 games, did a solid job in relief. Jack Taschner, Brendan Donnelly, Javier Lopez, and Octavio Dotel carried the Bucs through the final 2 innings, allowing just 1 run on 1 hit, and Dotel earned his first save of the season.
The Bucs got the offense going early against Dan Haren, the Diamondbacks’ ace, scoring 5 runs in the first 4 innings. Aki Iwamura continued his hot streak from the night before by belting a 2-run homerun in the 4th inning, while Jeff Clement hit a solo shot in 2nd inning. Lastings Milledge and Ronny Cedeno each added RBI’s in a 6-3 Pirates win, handing Haren his first loss of the season and evening the series, setting up a rubber-match on Sunday afternoon.
Sunday, April 11: Daniel McCutchen’s first start of the 2010 season looked like this: 3.1 innings, 9 runs on 6 hits, with his current ERA sitting at an astronomical 24.30. Chris Snyder was one of the hitting stars of the day for the Diamondbacks, going 2-4 with a homerun and 5 RBI’s. The game was competitive until the 4th inning, when the Diamonds recorded an astounding 13 runs, which included a 3-run homer, a 2-run homer, a solo homer, a 2-run triple, and a 3-run double. Ugh, nauseas yet?
The Pirates’ bats faired relatively well, scoring 6 runs on 12 hits. Andrew McCutchen went 2-5, including his 1st homerun of the season, while Delwyn Young smashed a 2-run triple in the 3rd inning, which actually gave the Pirates a 2 run lead at that point in the game. Still, the knockout blow certainly came in the 4th inning, the it was obvious the Pirates closed up shop at that point.
So the Bucs lost the series in the first road trip of the season. Saturday evening’s performance was very uplifting, as the bats came alive early, while we had another productive start from Zach Duke and the bullpen cleaned up nicely. Unfortunately, the match-ups on Friday and Sunday were embarrassing, at best. Combined, the D-backs outscored the Pirates 27-13 in the three games, continuing their recent dominance of us. Still, from a fan’s perspective who has seen the Pirates tally losing records for 17 straight seasons, a considerable-goal is for the Pirates to win as many home series as they can, while avoiding as many sweeps on the road. Using this mentality, and their recent performances against the Diamondbacks, the result of this series could have been worse. But the shaky pitching to begin the season, not including Duke or Ross Olendorf, is cause for serious concern as they travel to San Francisco for a 3-game set against the Giants.
Check back here on Wednesday for another series update, right here on Fans From The Stands!
Current Record: 3-3
And…As Always…Let’s Go Bucs!
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