The Pittsburgh Pirates were down 4-0 but then came back to beat the visiting Colorado Rockies by the score of 6-4.  The Pirates held the Rockies scoreless the final six innings of the game and that is what allowed them to keep chipping away and come away with the victory.

Luis Rivas was the big man at the plate for the Pirates as he finished 3-4 with three rbi.  The Pirates also got rbi from Jason Bay and Chris Gomez in the game.  It was great to see the offense as they just kept the pressure on the Rockies as the game went on.  This just might give the team more confidence at the plate and hopefully some more runs on the scoreboard in the future.

Pirates starting pitcher Yoslan Herrera lasted five innings as he gave up all four runs to the Rockies.  Herrera came away with a no decision in the game.  Jason Davis earned his first victory of the season and is now 1-0.  Tyler Yates tossed the ninth inning and came away with his first save of the season as well.

Pirates Baseball Blog

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.

On Monday the Pittsburgh Pirates send down 13 different players to various minor league locations and camps as they trimmed down their big league spring training roster.

Romulo Sanchez, Dave Davidson, and Luis Munoz were sent do Triple-A Indianapolis

Jimmy Barthmaier, Ronald Belisario, and Yoslan Herrera to Double-A Altoona

Olivo Astacio was sent to Single-A Lynchburg

Adam Bernero, Jesse Chavez, Daniel Moskos, Miguel Perez, and Jose Macias were all reassigned to minor league camp.

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