For the third straight night, the Pittsburgh Pirates lost to the Houston Astros. The Astros got the best of the Pirates by the score of 7-4 as the continue to play very good baseball. It’s too bad the Pirates couldn’t learn something from the hot playing Astros.

Tom Gorzelanny got the start for the Pirates but he didn’t last too long as he injured his middle finger. He had given up two hits and two home runs before the injury. Denny Bautista was absolutely terrible as he gave up three hits and five runs. Four of those five runs came via a grand slam off the bat of Miguel Tejada.

Adam LaRoche finished the game with two rbi on a solo home run and a rbi double. Nate McLouth and Nyjer Morgan both added a rbi each for the Pirats as well, they just couldn’t keep up with the Astros and that grand slam by Tejada was the difference in the game.

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The story of the night was Yoslan Herrera, pitching 6 innings of shutout baseball. Although his fastball never clocked above 90mph he was able to keep the ball down, change speeds and throw his breaking ball for strikes. Yoslan showed his ability to pitch, rather than throw by effectively using a fastball and curve. His fastball, having a nice late sinking action, induced a good number of groundouts, while he was throwing an “11-5” curveball for strikes early in the count and out of the zone as an out pitch.

The most productive outfield in baseball continued to impress, Jason Bay, Xavier Nady, and Nate McLouth all homered , Bay and Nady collected theirs together when they went back to back in the fourth for an early 4 run lead. Nate McLouth added his 2-run homer in the bottom of the eighth to cap the scoring at 9. Doug Mientkiewicz, Freddy Sanchez, and Ryan Doumit also chipped in 2 hits apiece with Doumit doubling in a run in the first. Overall it was a very consistent offensive output.

The Bullpen did a great job of closing out Yoslan Herrera’s first major league win, Denny Bautista came in in the seventh to strike out the side, Sean Burnett closed out the game with a 1-2-3 ninth striking out 2. Overall Bautista and Burnett combined for 3 innings, giving up 1 run on 2 hits and striking out 5 without walking a batter.

Streaks: Xavier Nady continued his hot hitting bringing his hit streak to 13 games, Freddy Sanchez pushed his multi-hit streak to 4 games, while the offense scored 8 or more runs for the fourth straight game as well.

The Pittsburgh Pirates won a wild game on the road in Cincinnati as they beat the Reds 6-5 on Tuesday evening.  The Pirates and Reds played 11 innings and it came down to the final out before anyone could actually breath.  It was a back and forth game the entire game and the Pirates were lucky to come out on top if you ask me.

Jack Wilson and Nate McLouth delived rbi’s in the top of the 11th inning for the Pirates.  Wilson had a rbi triple while McLouth had a rbi single for what would be the game winning run.  Adam LaRoche, Doug Mientkiewicz, Jason Michaels, and Jose Bautista all had one rbi in the game to go along with Wilson’s and McLouth’s rbi’s.  Offense came through when they needed to and they were the mvp of this game.

Pirates starting pitcher Zach Duke tossed five innings and gave up six hits and one run to get the no decision.  Duke pitched pretty good but only lasted five innings.  Denny Bautista, John Grabow, and Tyler Yates all pitched in relief before Damaso Marte gave up two runs in the eighth inning.  Matt Capps gave up one run even though he picked up the win in the game to improve his record to 2-3.  Romulo Sanchez got his first save of the season as he pitched the bottom of the 11th inning.  Sanchez didn’t make it easy on himself however as he did give up one run in the inning.

In the end it was the Pirates coming out on top which is always good to see.  Now can they win the rubber match on Wednesday?  Pirates Blog