Mets Score In Later Innings To Shutout Pirates

by Zane Heiple

Photo Courtesy of AP

Today’s game felt like it had two parts for the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Innings 1 through 6 were an easy cruise for starter Kevin Correia, while innings 7 to 9 were a mess for Correia and the Pirates bullpen.  Meanwhile, the New York Mets pitchers had no trouble handling the Bucco offense.

Correia would go a total of 7.2 innings today while allowing four runs on seven hits while striking out four.  All four of the runs he gave up came in the seventh and eighth innings.  He started the first four innings with a perfect game, but that fell apart in the later innings.  New York got on the board in the seventh when Jason Bay hit a sacrifice fly that scored Daniel Murphy.  Angel Pagan was forced out at second when he did not retouch the bag while going back to first.  Then Mets then scored four runs in the eighth inning to take away any hope of a Pittsburgh comeback.  Scott Harrison and Jose Reyes would then hit back to back solo home runs off of Daniel McCutchen to give the Mets a 7-0 victory.

As stated earlier, New York’s pitching staff had no trouble handling the Pirates offense.  Starter Chris Capuano pitched seven innings allowing only three hits while striking out five and walking two.  He was followed by Jason Isringhausen and Bobby Parnell.

These kinds of losses have been piling up for Pittsburgh in 2011, where we have a solid outing by a starter that is wasted by lack of offense.  While Correia did give up four runs, who knows how the game would have turned if the offense would have given him three or four runs of support before the Mets had a big eighth inning.  These two teams will finish up this four game series tomorrow night at 7:05pm.  Paul Maholm will start and hopefully the bats will wake up and score some runs.

Record vs. Mets:  3-4
Record vs. N.L. East:  7-12
Record at Home:  14-18
Overall Record 31-33

And…

As Always…

Let’s Go Bucs!!!