Any time a Pirates’ pitcher can be mentioned in the same breath as Doug Drabek, it’s a good thing. When they can be mentioned in the same breath as Dock Ellis, you know they’re doing something right. For A.J. Burnett, he’s accomplished both in his past two starts. With Burnett’s win in Cleveland, he became the first pitcher since Drabek’s Cy Young season in 1990 to win six consecutive starts. With his 4-1 win tonight, Burnett became the first Pirate since the great Dock Ellis to win at least seven starts in a row. Ellis won eight consecutive in 1974.
“As long as we’re winning out there, it’s all good,” Burnett said. “It’s not about me out there, it’s about passing the baton from what J-Mac did and what our starters are doing. Anytime you can get some early runs like that, it makes you go out there and go a little harder.”
While it wasn’t Burnett’s standard dominate performance of this season, he did pitch six innings allowing only two hits and no runs. What got Burnett in trouble were his seven three-ball counts and three walks resulting in a 98 pitch count when he exited.
“The 21 pitches in the sixth (was the reason for taking Burnett out),” Hurdle said. “I felt comfortable giving the ball to our bullpen at that point in time. I felt real good about it. Sometimes you have to wrestles it from A.J. He was willing to go out there and give us another one, but I told him this is the way we want to play this one tonight.”
Burnett did come up big as Austin Jackson and Quintin Berry led off the sixth with a single and a walk. Burnett was able to get Miguel Cabrera to ground into a 6-4-3 double play, followed by a Prince Fielder flyout to get out of the jam.
“I just felt like I was beating him (Cabrera) with fastballs, so I stuck with it,” Burnett said. “We were two-seaming it and four-seaming it and he really didn’t know which way it was going I think. He’s a good hitter and we go way back when we played together, so he was talking a good game out there yelling at me.”
For Hurdle, he was as impressed with the double-play induced ball as he was with anything else.
“There was no bigger pitch than the 94th one of the night,” Hurdle said. “The ground ball double-play off the bat of one of the best hitters in baseball. That was as big as anything that happened all night.”
After back-to-back doubles given up by Jared Hughes resulted in the Tigers first run, Tony Watson shut the door to preserve the 4-1 win in the seventh.
As for the offense, they got started in a hurry as Alex Presley and Neil Walker combined for a double and single to put the Pirates on the board in the first inning for the 10th time in their past 12 games. A Garrett Jones double-play would, plate Walker for an early 2-0 lead.
In what would go down as one of the more awkward moments of the year, A.J. Burnett would attempt a sacrifice bunt with Pedro Alvarez and Rod Barajas on first and second (no he didn’t hit himself in the face), but Doug Fister threw the ball away while attempting to gun out Alvarez at third. With Alvarez and Barajas advancing to home and third respectively, Delmon Young misplayed the ball in left field resulting in Barajas scoring from first.
“It’s big,” Barajas said of the Tigers’ miscues. “You want to score runs early and often. It turned out that was the last run we scored in the game. I was kind of able to get the read and I saw Delmon drop the ball and I thought ‘Ok, let me take a chance here’ and it worked out.”
Burnett said while it wasn’t a good bunt, he’ll take the result.
“I don’t know how productive it was, he threw it away,” Burnett said with a smile on his face. “As long as I was able to get it down. There was still some yelling going on in the crowd.”
Barajas said he is proud that his team is scoring runs different ways and taking advantage of the other teams mistakes.
“I think this team is starting to find different ways to score runs,” Barajas said. “We’re stringing hits together, guys are hitting the ball out of the ballpark and we are taking advantage of the defense’s miscues; we did the same thing in Cleveland. We just need to keep positive and keep doing the same thing.”
But once again, the night was all about Andrew McCutchen. Following his extravagant night last night where he wound up a homer short of the cycle, McCutchen once again collected three hits in his push for the All-Star game in July.
“He’s made a lot of progress this year from where he was last year,” Hurdle said. “You saw the challenges he faced last year from the first half of the season, throughout the second half of the season where he tried to grab the rest of the lineup and put it on his back. It wasn’t for any other reason than for wanting his team to do well. He’s just a better player this year than he was last.”
With winning the opening game of the series, it is the Pirates 10th win in their past 12 tries in interleague play at PNC Park. Max Scherzer (6-4, 5.17 ERA), who struck out 15 Pirates earlier this season, will take the hill tomorrow for the Tigers. This time however, he is catching a hot Pirates team that upon entering the game, were tied for third in the National League in both home runs and runs. Opposing Scherzer will be Brad Lincoln (3-2, 3.82 ERA) in what could be his final audition in the starting rotation. Start time is scheduled for a special 4:05 edition of baseball in Pittsburgh.
Photo Credits: Getty Images
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