Padres Dominant Pitching completes sweep of Pirates as they lose 3-0

Zach Duke pitched his fourth quality start in his last five outings yesterday against the Padres. He went six innings, gave up six hits, two earned runs, three walks, two strikeouts but falls to 5-11 on the year. Unfortunately, the Pirates offense went silent and couldn’t give Duke the win he deserved. The only mistake Zach had was a two-run home run to Ryan Ludwick, who hit his third of the series.

“It’s a loss, but I still feel pretty good about the way I pitched,” Duke said. “The Padres pitched extremely well this whole series. You know it’s going to be a battle, but unfortunately we came out on the short end.”

“He pitched good enough to win, but we couldn’t get anything going,” Russell said. “As the game went along, both sides could see that it was getting tough to hit with the shadows. We knew we were going to have to get out early and we couldn’t get anything going.”  

The Padres are first in the National League for a reason. The Bucs learned that one the hard way as they were swept by San Diego. The Pirates finish 0-6 against them this year. The Padres pitching staff is one of the reasons why they have been so great this season. Not only the starting pitching, but the Bullpen has been just as dominant, if not more so. In a past post I showed that the pen’ leads in the the majors in everything from ERA to strikeouts to walks to opponent average.

Jon Garland pitched six innings giving up just one hit, walked four and struck out five. He is now 11-8 on the season. The Pirates only managed to get four hits the whole game. Gregerson picked up his 28th hold and Heath Bell came in for his 34th save.

“They made good pitches when they needed to. They executed pretty well,” said Pedro Alvarez. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t give [Duke] any run support. He has been pitching really well, just hasn’t gotten the wins.”  

“Their pitching staff is really good, obviously,” said manager John Russell. “They are going to make it tough on a lot of people to score runs. You can’t make mistakes. You can’t give them anything because they’re not going to give up much.” 

Chris Resop came in and pitched a scoreless hitless inning for the Pirates, striking out two. Since he was purchased from the Braves he has been pretty dominant. 4.2 innings pitched, three hits, just one run, one walk, and seven strikeouts. Not too shabby!

Joel Hanrahan came in and pitched a scoreless hitless inning, striking out two. Hanny has been filthy all season and he even hit 99 on the gun to strike out Matt Stairs. (I believe that is the hardest I have seen him throw. His fastball is usually around 97.)

The Pirates are in Houston for a three game series. As if the road wins haven’t been brutal enough, they are 0-6 at Minute Maid Park this season. The Pirates are just seven losses shy of the dreaded 18th consecutive losing season.

Today’s pitching Matchup:

Ross Ohlendorf 1-9, 4.23 ERA

VS

Brett Myers 8-7, 3.21 ERA

Ohlendorf still has just one win on the season. Saturday against the Rockies, Ross had one of his best outings of the season. He struck out six over six-plus innings and allowed four hits. The Bullpen blew the lead and kept him from winning his second game.

Myers has a franchise record streak of 23 straight starts of six innings or more this season. His last outing he pitched six innings, gave up four runs on seven hits, striking out two while just needing 78 pitches. In Brett’s last three starts he is 1-1 with a 3.00 ERA that includes 18 strikeouts.  

Other News and Notes:

• The Pirates drop to 13-45 on the road this season and have now lost seven straight road losses, in which they have only scored 11 runs.
• Left Handers are hitting 34-for-100 (.340 AVG) against Zach Duke this season.
• Jeff Locke 6IP, 8H, 3ER, 6K (3.71 ERA)
• Colton Cain 4IP, 2H, 0R, 2BB, 4K (5.00 ERA)
• During the game a foul bowl was ripped down twoards the Pirates bullpen. Chan Ho Park and Chris Resop ran out of the way while the ballgirl stepped in front of them and caught the ball. It was pretty funny, if you missed it, check the video out here  
• Brad Lincoln -97 pitches 5IP 3H 0R 2BB HB 5K