In his two-plus years as a Pirate, former first baseman Adam LaRoche was ridiculed for his slow starts and overwhelmingly high strikeout ratio.\u00a0 As the saying goes; paybacks a you know what.\u00a0 After taking two-of-three from the Nationals last weekend, LaRoche did his part to make sure the Pirates couldn’t take the first game in a two-game set in Washington.\u00a0 Going 3-4 with 4 RBI, including collecting his 1,000 career hit, LaRoche helped lead his Nationals to a 7-4 win over the Pirates.<\/p>\n
LaRoche collected two home runs in the series last week, and added another today, as well as a bases loaded triple to put the game away.\u00a0 As aforementioned, LaRoche is a notoriously slow starter, but heading into tonight’s game, he was hitting .339, his highest two month total of his career.<\/p>\n
Along with LaRoche, Pirates starter Erik Bedard, who is making his first start since suffering back spasms, ran into problems with Xavier Nady and Ian Desmond who also both hit home runs.\u00a0 Bedard, who only gave up one homer before this game, was hit around by the struggling Nationals offense in his return to the mound.<\/p>\n
Leading the way for the Pirates offensively was Josh Harrison.\u00a0 The utility-man earned the start today in the highly criticized Pirates lineup.\u00a0 Harrison, Yamaico Navarro, Clint Barmes, Rod Barajas and Bedard gave the Pirates five players with an average under .200 entering the game.\u00a0 After delivering a walk-off single in Sunday’s extra-innings win over the Astros, Harrison continued his hot swinging tonight.\u00a0 He delivered in the fifth with an RBI single, and after Bedard left with a 4-1 deficit, Harrison hit a two-run home run to left field to pull the Pirates within one run.<\/p>\n
Before the game, the Pirates send Alex Presley to Triple-A Indianapolis and recalled Evan Meek.\u00a0 In the bottom of the seventh, Meek hit a man, and walked two batters before giving up the three-run double to LaRoche.\u00a0 Meek, who was sent to Indy in part to losing velocity on his fastball, had issues with his control as he threw eight out of nine pitches for balls in his brief appearance.<\/p>\n
The Pirates will look to split the series tomorrow with the Nats as James McDonald (2-2, 2.42 ERA) will take the hill for the Pirates as Jordan Zimmerman (2-3, 2.14 ERA) will take the bump for the Nationals.\u00a0 First pitch is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In his two-plus years as a Pirate, former first baseman Adam LaRoche was ridiculed for his slow starts and overwhelmingly high strikeout ratio.\u00a0 As the saying goes; paybacks a you know what.\u00a0 After taking two-of-three from the Nationals last weekend, LaRoche did his part to make sure the Pirates couldn’t take the first game in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[1957,1767,1068,377,925,1958],"class_list":["post-11609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-professional","tag-adam-laroche","tag-erik-bedard","tag-josh-harrison","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-washington-nationals","tag-xavier-nady"],"yoast_head":"\n