McLouth's 3-Run Homer With 2 Outs in 9th Lifts Pirates to 6-4 Win Over Dodgers
Associated Press | Apr 15, 08 12:21 AM CDT in
Sports
Nate McLouth extended his season-opening hitting streak to 13 games with a two-out, three-run homer off closer Takashi Saito in the ninth inning, and the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the stunned Los Angeles Dodgers 6-4 Monday night for their fourth straight victory.
Saito (1-1) was trying to save the win for countryman Hiroki Kuroda, who made his Dodger Stadium debut. But the right-hander gave up a one-out single to Jose Bautista and a two-out single to pinch-hitter Adam LaRoche before McLouth drove a 1-0 pitch deep into the right-field pavilion for his second homer this season.
McLouth is one of three players to hit safely in each of his team's first 13 games this year, along with Kansas City's Billy Butler and the Dodgers' James Loney. Loney's streak is the Dodgers' third-longest to open a season since the team moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1958. Steve Garvey hit in 21 straight in 1978, one year after Ron Cey opened the season with a 17-game run.
Bautista hit a two-run homer for the Pirates. Tyler Yates (2-0) pitched a scoreless eighth for the win and Matt Capps worked a perfect ninth for his fourth save.
Pirates starter Zach Duke gave up four runs and eight hits over six innings, with two walks and no strikeouts. In his five career starts against the Dodgers, the left-hander is 1-3 and has allowed 24 earned runs in 29 2-3 innings.
Kuroda allowed three runs and seven hits over six innings with two strikeouts and no walks. The 33-year-old right-hander signed with the Dodgers in December after 11 seasons with Hiroshima in the Japanese Central League.
Jason Bay and Xavier Nady collaborated on the tiebreaking run in the sixth. Bay singled and came all the way around on Nady's double off the right-field fence to give Pittsburgh a 3-2 lead.
But the Dodgers pulled ahead with two runs in the bottom half. Loney hit an RBI single after a leadoff double by Jeff Kent, whose 541st career two-base hit tied Rogers Hornsby for 23rd place in that department. Two outs later, rookie Blake Dewitt lined a single off the glove of first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz to score Loney with the go-ahead run.
Bautista gave Pittsburgh a 2-0 lead in the second with his first homer of the season, driving a 1-0 pitch into the pavilion seats in left-center with two outs after a single by Nady.
Andruw Jones drove in the Dodgers' first run with a second-inning groundout after Russell Martin reached on an infield hit, then advanced to third on a balk and a passed ball by Ryan Doumit. It was only the second RBI this season for Jones, who signed a two-year, $36.2 million free-agent contract on Feb. 28 and is 5-for-44 on the season.
The slumping slugger got his second extra-base hit as a Dodger in the fifth. Nady misjudged Jones' towering opposite-field drive to right field while attempting a leaping catch at the fence. Jones ended up with a triple and scored the tying run when Kuroda bounced a double over the third base bag for his first major league hit.
Notes:@ Doumit tried to one-hand Martin's foul pop in the eighth and dropped it for an error. Martin then singled. ... Former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda and his wife Jo observed their 58th wedding anniversary. ... Duke and Former Dodgers great Fernando Valenzuela are among four pitchers since 1920 who fashioned an ERA under 1.00 through their first six big league starts. Duke's was 0.92 in 2005. Valenzuela's was 0.33 in 1981, the year he won the NL Cy Young Award and was Rookie of the Year.
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