(Photo Credit: Jeff Roberson)
The Pirates (87 – 64) look to rebound from a two-game skid as they take on the Padres (70 -80) in game three of a 4-game set. Charlie Morton (7 – 4, 3.54 ERA) will take on Tyson Ross (3 – 8, 3.29 ERA).
Leading Off
The Pirates are on the verge of losing their first 4-game series of the season as they have gone 6 – 0 -2 in their previous eight 4-game series. This is also the final 4-game set of the year.
With last night’s loss, The Pirates dropped to a game behind the Cardinals for first in the NL Central. The Reds moved to within 1 1/2 games of the Pirates for the first wild card spot. Their playoff magic number also remained at 6 as the Nationals swept yesterday’s double header with the Braves.
Hurdle’s Quotes
On struggling teams “getting up” for series against contenders — “I think there can be, but at the end of the day, it’s really going to be impacted by the effort off of the mound by the opposition pitcher or your pitcher. That’s where it starts, because you can have nine guys that want to all they want, but if that starting pitcher goes out there and doesn’t have a good day, then that whole terrain has changed. Now, when you get some momentum off the mound, you make some plays defensively, you can strike the ball a couple times, you get a lead and the momentum puts on your uniform for a change, then it definitely can escalate and take on a more definitive force for you.”
On the Padres success at PNC (They’re 30 – 10 as of last night, here) — “I know, since I’ve been here, that they have played better than us. They pitched better than us, they’ve hit better than us, they’ve outplayed us, so that being said, I don’t know how much more you need to dig than that. We’ve got to play a better game, an overall game. Our road history against them wasn’t that good and we were able to twist that in our direction earlier this season, but it’s up to us to change.”
Other Notes
— Andrew McCutchen ranks third in the league in batting average (.326), second in multi-hit games (58), second in hits (179), third in on-base percentage (.406), fourth in total bases (284) and slugging percentage (.517), fifth in extra base hits (62) and sixth in runs scored (92).
— Pedro Alvarez shares the National League lead with 33 home runs, the most hit by a Pirates player since Jason Bay smacked 35 in 2006. The club record for most home runs by a third basemen is 34 by Aramis Ramirez, who hit 34 for the Pirates in 2001.
