Nationals Beat Correia, Even Series With Bucs

By Chad Carlson

Photo Credit: AP

After an impressive series-opening victory last night over the Washington Nationals, the Pirates looked to tally another win at home in front of a scarcely populated PNC Park crowd today.  The Buccos sent Kevin Correia to the mound today, who was looking to follow up his magnificent start in his last outing, pitching a complete game against the Cincinnati Reds.

Unfortunately, Correia wasn’t as sharp today as he was in his previous start, and the Nationals got the best of the Pirates this afternoon by a final score of 6-3.

Kevin was only able to pitch 4.2 innings, giving up five runs on 11 hits, while walking a batter and giving up two homeruns, raising his ERA to 3.48.  Correia took the loss, falling to 3-2 on the year.

The Buccos struck first in the game, though, as Neil Walker singled in Andrew McCutchen, giving the Pirates a 1-0 in the first inning.  After quite a rough stretch the past week or so, Walker went 3-4 today.

The Nationals responded in the third inning as former Bucco Adam LaRoche grounded out to first base on a sacrifice, scoring Danny Espinosa.  The very next batter, Michael Morse, blasted a three-run homer to deep left, scoring Rick Ankiel and Jayson Werth.  The Nationals led 4-1.

Pittsburgh battled back in the fourth inning with a pair of runs.  Chris Snyder hit a sacrifice fly to left, allowing Garrett Jones to tag and score.  Then Ronny Cedeno, who is still apparently feeling the pressure of the recent moves regarding the shortstop position, hammered a double to left center, scoring Pedro Alvarez and cutting the lead to 4-3.  Unfortunately, that is the closest the Buccos would make it in the game.

The Nationals would tally a run in the fifth and eighth innings to secure the victory, which included a solo homerun to deep right by LaRoche.  Drew Storen came in and accumulated his third save of the season.

This was a hard fought game by both teams, and the Nationals simply made more plays in the crucial situations.  Their starter, Jason Marquis, improved to 2-0 on the season, giving up three runs on eight hits through his six innings of work.

On a positive note, the Pirates’ top part of the lineup delivered.  In addition to Walker’s three-hit performance, McCutchen added a pair, while Jose Tabata and Lyle Overbay also added a knock a piece.  Alvarez also had two more hits today after going hitless yesterday.

As we said in the podcast, this is a huge series for the Pirates.  They need to win this series.  They got off to a fabulous start last night with the victory, but today’s game was a bit of a setback, setting up a huge matchup tomorrow in the rubber match of the series.  With a victory, the Buccos can win their first home series of the season, and hopefully build some momentum as they welcome the World Series Champion San Francisco Giants into PNC Park later this week.

Record Vs. Nationals: 1-1

Record Vs. N.L. East: 1-4

Record At Home: 2-6

Overall Record: 9-12

And…

As Always...

Let’s Go Bucs!