Buc Bats Clutch In 5-3 Win; Wandy Hurt

The Pirate sticks were hot - at least for an inning - and another stellar effort from the bullpen was enough last night for the Bucs to take a 5-3 victory from the D-Backs in the desert.

Starling Marte greeted Trevor Cahill with a single to right to open, and after The Kid lined out, Cutch drilled a double inside the line at third to plate Marte, who scored easily even with a little hesitation rounding second. With two down, Russell Martin and Pedro drew full-count walks to juice the sacks. Travis Snider followed with a bouncer up the middle, and the Bucs had a 3-0 lead.

Arizona got a run back in the second. Paul Goldschmidt doubled to lead off and touched home two outs later when Wil Nieves went up the middle for a knock. With one away in the Arizona third, a couple bad things happened at once.

Pedro booted a grounder, and Wandy Rodriguez limped off the mound. The lefty had felt some tightness in his hammy above the knee the inning before, and though he went through an impromptu stretching routine on the mound that would have made Jillian Michaels break a sweat in an effort to loosen up, he was done for the night. Jeanmar Gomez, just recovering from a bruised chest suffered a couple of nights ago, came in cold and looked it.

Martin Prado singled and Aaron Hill walked. Goldschmidt launched a bomb to left, but his bid for a grand salami fell just short and his loud out went into the books as a sac fly. Alfredo Marte singled in the tying run (it was his first MLB hit), and it was 3-3 after three and not looking so good. But the Bucco arms had another level in them.

Gomez got through the fourth, helped mightily by a poor bunt against the Bucs' wheel play. After giving up back-to-back knocks to open the frame, Cahill rolled a sac try back to the box, and Gomez got the lead runner at third. That was big, as Gerardo Parro's fly to right moved Nieves to third instead of scoring him, and the game remained tied.

The Pirates used the M&M boys to regain the lead in the fifth. Marte tripled to left with one away, and Cutch's sac fly brought him home barely ahead of Parra's throw in a match-up of great speed v a great arm. Justin Wilson came on, and it was pretty much all Pirate pitching after that. The lefty didn't get the win or save (for that matter, not even a hold), but facing a lot of RH hitters, he cruised through the lineup.

Wilson twirled three almost perfect frames (he plunked Parra), whiffing a pair of D-Backs with 96-97 MPH cheese. He handed the ball off to Mark Melancon in the eighth with a 5-3 lead, thanks to a Jones homer in the top of the frame off Josh Collmenter. Melancon tossed a perfect round, striking out a pair.

The Bucs tried to add to the cushion in the ninth with two-out walks to Gaby Sanchez and Marte, but a Walker pop out set the stage for Jason Grilli. He earned his second save easily, striking out AJ Pollack and getting a couple of balls hit in the air to close out a 1-2-3 inning, and the Bucs had stopped the bleeding for a night.

The Pittsburgh bullpen worked five strong frames against the hottest hitting club in the NL, and came away with a much needed W. The prognosis on Rodriguez is iffy; he said he was gonna ice his hammy and see what happens, so we'll find out if he has to miss a start down the road a bit later. The Bucs have Thursday off, so they can work around a missed start if he needs a little recovery time. While way too early to speculate, if he does have to sit for awhile, both Gomez and Wilson in the bullpen are starters by trade.

The Pirates bats didn't exactly reawaken memories of the 1927 Yankees. They were held to five hits and K'ed twelve times, but three of the knocks went for extra bases and Arizona helped the cause with six walks and a beaned batter.

James McDonald faces Brandon McCarthy today.

• Coincidence? Cutch tweeted he was bring back the Zoltan and flashed the Z during the game. Somewhere in Japan, Casey McGehee is smiling.
• This was the first time this season that Arizona never had the lead at some point during the game. It's also the sixth time in seven games the D-Back pitchers have notched double-digit strikeouts.
• Indy won 3-1; Phil Irwin went six innings surrendering a run on four hits with five K and Bryan Morris got the save, going two innings of perfect ball. One name under the radar you may want to follow is Adalberto Santos at Altoona; the kid can hit, and as a 1B-3B-OF type could make the show as a corner utility guy in a couple of years.
• Paul Maholm is off to a hot start. The lefty is 2-0 for Atlanta and hasn't given up a run in his 12-2/3 IP, surrendering seven hits with 13 strikeouts.

Bucs v D-Backs

Wandy Rodriguez will take the hill tonight against Trevor Cahill. Rodriguez hasn't had an easy go of it against Arizona, with a career 3-6/5.48 ERA mark over 46 innings. The Bucs haven't faced Cahill since 2010, when he tossed a two hit shutout with 10 K over 7-2/3 frames against them. The teams are headed opposite ways in the early going. Pittsburgh was just swept by LA while Arizona broomed the Brewers and has won four in a row and 5-of-6 so far.  The game starts at Chase Field at 9:40 and will be shown on Root Sports and The Fan 93.7.

Pirate Lineup: Starling Marte LF, Neil Walker 2B, Andrew McCutchen CF, Garrett Jones 1B, Russell Martin C, Pedro Alvarez 3B, Travis Snider RF, Clint Barmes SS and Wandy Rodriguez P.

Pedro's batting sixth against a righty, and it looks like the Snider/Tabata platoon is back on track.

Arizona Lineup: Gerardo Parra RF, Martin Prado 3B, Aaron Hill 2B, Paul Goldschmidt 1B, Alfredo Marte LF, AJ Pollack CF, Wil Nieves C, Cliff Pennington SS and Trevor Cahill P.

• Cutch and Starling Marte have 11 hits; the rest of the Pirate team has 10.
• National doom and gloom has arrived: Jason Stonesifer of Yahoo Sports writes "There is every reason to panic...The (Pirates) team now faces a series against the Diamondbacks, a team tied with the most hits in baseball. After that it's series against the Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinals and Atlanta Braves. It's hard to imagine the Pittsburgh Pirates getting out of April with anything resembling a winning record."
• NL Central after Sunday: Cincy is 4-2, the Cards 3-3, the Cubs 2-4 and Milwaukee & Pittsburgh are 1-5, three games back. The Bucs, Brewers and Cubs were all swept in their last series. If you're wondering about our old running mates, the Astros, they're 1-5 in the AL West and on a five game tailspin.
• Ben Badler of Baseball America included OF Gregory Polanco in his "Prospects Notebook" column.
• A nice New Brighton moment in Cleveland: Tito Francona, who had a 15 year MLB career, six with the Tribe, will throw out the first pitch to the Indians manager, his son Terry.

This Day In Bucco History

See-saw games, birthdays, a statue and a trip to rehab:

• 1915 - RHP Kirby Higbe was born. He pitched for Pittsburgh at the tail end of his career as a mainstay of the rotation in 1947 and a swingman in 1948, but began losing it by 1949. The Bucs traded him to the Giants that season, and after 1950, he hung 'em up. The hard partying righty had a solid career - in a dozen seasons, he claimed 118 wins and won a World Series with Brooklyn in 1941. 
• 1938 - Happy birthday to RHP Tom Butters, who spent his brief 4 year MLB career (1962-65) with Pittsburgh, compiling a 2-3 record with a 3.10 ERA. The fireballer was signed at age 17, and spent six years in the minors with control problems. He looked like he was going to get his shot to start after a strong 1964 season (2-2, 2.38 ERA) under Danny Murtaugh, but he was hurt in a car accident going to camp the following year and retired two months into the season because of the injury. Butters did go on to have a very successful career as a Duke athletic administrator after baseball. 
• April 8, 1968 - Because of the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., the Pirates vote not to play games on Monday - the day of the scheduled opener, which ended up cancelled league-wide - or Tuesday. They opened on Wednesday the 10th at Houston.
• 1984 - Rod Scurry checked into a 30-day drug rehabilitation program to battle his cocaine demons. He returned to action on May 13th.
• 1991 - The Bucs were one-hit on Opening Day by the Expos Dennis Martinez and a couple of relievers at TRS as Doug Drabek and the defending division champs went down 7-0. Barry Bonds had the only knock, a seventh inning single.
• 1997 - The Pirates outpitched the Padres 2-0 behind Steve Cooke‚ Rich Loiselle‚ and John Ericks. They teamed up to toss a one-hitter, a single off Cooke by Steve Finley. Tony Womack was the Buc batting hero, driving in two eighth inning runs with a double to beat Sean Bergman at Qualcomm Stadium. (Ericks was a swingman who was injured early in the season and never pitched again.)
• 2001 - The Pirates whipped the Astros 9-3 at Enron Field behind the smokin’ bat of 3B Aramis Ramirez, who slammed three HRs and drove in six runs. Joe Beimel was the winning pitcher.
• 2002 - Lloyd McClendon’s Pirates earned a 1-0 victory against the Reds. Ron Villone, Mike Fetters and Mike Williams combined on a four hit shutout, running the Bucs winning streak to five and breaking a nine game home opener losing streak.
• 2003 - The Bucs honored Hall of Famer slugger Ralph Kiner by unveiling a commemorative sculpture at their home opener. The bronze artwork is a bit oddball, showing just Kiner's hands gripping a Louisville Slugger bat. It’s in the left field rotunda, near the Willie Stargell statue. 
• 2011 - The Bucs outlasted the Rockies 5-4 in a 14-inning, 5 hour, 11 minute overnighter when Jose Tabata doubled with two outs off Franklin Morales to score Josh Rodriguez. Rockies' manager Jim Tracy decided to work on JT rather than walk him, even though Pirate pitcher Garrett Olson was on deck and the Bucs didn't have any position players left to pinch-hit. The wily Clint Hurdle had Cutch swinging in the on-deck circle (he was the leadoff hitter) and some suspect a con job was being pulled. Still, the bullpen was the story of the game - six  pitchers tossed 11-1/3 frames of shutout ball after starter Ross Ohlendorf lasted just three innings after giving up a three run bomb to Jason Giambi in the opening round. The game was played in front of 29,192 at PNC Park; most bailed out early and  read about the big finish in the morning paper.

Dodgers Broom Bucs

Starling Marte started off with a single, but hey, he did that yesterday. Of course, Hyun-Jin Ryu isn't Clayton Kershaw and Cutch loves lefties, so it was probably a copacetic time for him launch a 1-1 fastball into the left center field seats, ending an 18 inning string of zeroes and a home run drought for the Bucs.

Jeff Locke didn't get the memo about the pitching, though, and gave the lead back pretty quickly. With an out, Nick Punto singled into center, and Matt Kemp jumped an elevated heater and doubled to right. They both came in when Adrian Gonzalez knocked a knee-high curve through the Bucco shift into center for a two-run single. A Ray Searage visit calmed him down, and he got a pair of fly-outs to close the first.

The second was frustrating. JT and John McDonald both got ahead 3-0, took a pair of strikes and were retired routinely on the 3-2 pitch. Locke went down looking; the three Bucco batters took seven of Ryu's nine strikes. Locke handled the bottom of the order, notching a pair of K's. Marte dropped a bunt for a base hit to open the third, but the guys behind couldn't help the cause. Carl Crawford opened the LA half with a double and moved to third on a bunt. Locke left another heater up to Kemp; this time he turned it into a sac fly and 3-2 Blue lead.

The Bucs went down in order in the fourth. Jerry Hairston started the Dodgers off with an infield knock, and Juan Uribe forced him at second 3-4. Tim Federowicz worked a five pitch walk, but the 8-9 guys for LA closed the frame. McDonald took a leadoff walk in the fifth, but never left first. 

Crawford opened with a knock to left; the last three leadoff guys have reached for LA. Punto followed with another single. But Locke learned his lesson and didn't give Kemp a heater; he got him to bang into an around the horn DP on a changeup in and on the knees. But it went for nought as he tossed Gonzalez a fastball down the middle that he smacked into left center to bring home LA's fourth run before he was nailed by Marte trying to get turn it into a double.

The middle of the Buc order went down quietly in the sixth; Ryu picked up his fourth and fifth whiffs. The Pirates have had one hit, Marte's bunt single, since Cutch's homer in the first. Locke threw his first clean inning, with Marte snagging a Hairston liner and then running down an Uribe home run bid by climbing the wall in the left field corner.

Ryu stayed in to face Pedro lefty-to-lefty, and K'ed him for the second time. Ronald Belisario took the ball. Clint let JT face the righty rather than call on Travis snider and it worked. Tabata was credited with an infield single and moved on to second when Punto's toss to first went astray. Garrett Jones pinch hit and flew out; Snider grabbed a stick and grounded out; both guys went after the first pitch.

The line on Locke is six innings, yielding four runs on eight hits and a walk with two K. He tried to work inside today, but still left too many pitches up and too many over the plate, and sometimes both. Ryu went 6-1/3, giving up two runs on three hits and a walk with six whiffs, working the edges of the dish. Chris Leroux took the mound, the final guy on the active roster to make an appearance.

Justin Seller greeting him with a homer to left center. With two down, Punto walked and stole second. After being ahead of Kemp 1-2, Leroux lost him, too. Searage visited his righty, but it didn't help. Gonzalez singled on a heater tossed down the pipe, and at 6-2, the game had gotten out of hand. Hurdle had two lefties available to face Gonzo; he likely decided to let Leroux get the work and keep the pen fesh.

Belisario mowed down the top of the order in the eighth. Leroux struck out Ramon Hernandez, and Hurlde waved Jason Grilli on. Guess he needs some work, too, after having the last three games off.  After getting a lineout, he gave up a walk and single to the 8-9 hitters, but bore down to get Skip Schumaker on a fly to left.

Matt Guerrier was given the ninth inning honors. The Fort worked a one-out walk off him, and lefty JP Howell came on to face Pedro. Seems a bit like overkill with that lead; he struck him out swinging. Pedro now has 10 K and no BB in 22 at-bats, and is 0-for-8 with 4 K against LHP. Howell whiffed Clint Barmes, too, and the Bucs dropped the series to LA, the finale by a 6-2 tally.

The Bucs take on the D-Backs tomorrow night as Wandy Rodriguez and Trevor Cahill square off.

• The top four batters for LA went 8-for-12 with two doubles, two walks, sac bunt & fly, five RBI and five runs.
• The Dodgers drew 52,053 for today's game, their third sellout of the season
• There were a couple of good outings in the upper levels today. Kris Johnson dodged some raindrops and went five frames for Indy, giving up no runs on six hits and two walks with five K. Johnson got credit for the 3-0 win; Brandon Inge went 2-for-3 with a homer. At Altoona, Stolmy Pimentel went six innings for the Curve, surrendering no runs on two hits with a walk and four punch outs.  He got a no decision as the Altoona gloves and bullpen took an inning off in the seventh, giving up five two-out runs and dropping a 5-2 decision. Finally, converted pitcher Stetson Allie hit a walkoff 11th-inning HR for the WV Power for a 6-5 win against Asheville.

The Day In Bucco History: Openin Days & Stuff

 Opening days, a birthday, a retirement and a bridge:

• 1866 - Happy Birthday, Bill McKechnie. He was a Pirate infielder off and on from 1907-20 and manager (1922-26; World Series winner in 1925) for whom McKechnie Field at Bradenton is named.
• 1970 - After eight consecutive Opening Day defeats, the Mets finally won a lidlifter by beating the Pirates 5-3 at Forbes Field. It took 11 innings, but Ron Taylor, with a Tug McGraw save, beat Chuck Hartenstein. New York became the first team to have won a World Series (1969) before winning a season opener.
• 1977 - Danny Murtaugh’s number 40 was retired on Opening Day in front of 35,186 fans the year following his death. He won a pair of World Series and was twice Manager of the Year. Known for his dry wit, The Whistling Irishman attributed his success to “brilliant managerial thinking and dumb Irish luck.”
• 1978 - The Candy Man tossed a seven hit shutout to outduel Rick Reuschel and the Cubs 1-0 in the Pirates home opener at TRS. Bill Robinson was the hero; his hard slide into second after a Willie Stargell grounder broke up a potential inning-ending DP and allowed Frank Taveras to score the game’s only run.
• 1999 - The Sixth Street Bridge was renamed the Roberto Clemente Bridge.
• 2008 - The Pirates lost the first home opener of the Frank Coonelly/Neal Huntington era in exciting fashion, dropping a 10-8 decision to the Cubs at PNC Park in 12 innings. The Bucs fell behind 7-0, rallied to tie the score, and were set to win it in the ninth when Jose Bautista laid down a safety squeeze with Brian Bixler at third. Bixler lost his nerve and retreated back to the bag, costing Pittsburgh its last grab at the ring.

Bucs v LA, Notes

Jeff Locke takes the bump this afternoon against lefty Hyun-Jin Ryu. Locke was workmanlike (3-1/2.63 ERA) during the spring and will make his first outing of the year today. Ryu, 25, is a South Korean rookie, but the international FA, a Korean League star, has pitched in big-time Olympic and WBC games. Still, he might be a cure for the frozen Buc bats. The Giants touched him up for three runs and ten hits in 6-1/3 frames during his first start. The opening pitch is due to go off at 4:10, with Root Sports and The Fan 93.7 airing the contest.

Pirate Lineup: Starling Marte LF, Neil Walker 2B, Andrew McCutchen  CF, Gaby Sanchez 1B, Mike McKenry C, Pedro Alvarez 3B, Jose Tabata RF, John McDonald SS and Jeff Locke P.

The Fort gets his start, and John McDonald gives Clint Barmes a blow against Ryu on getaway day. It's the first outings for batterymates McKenry and Locke; only Chris Leroux has yet to make an appearance.

Dodger Lineup: Carl Crawford LF, Nick Punto 2B, Matt Kemp CF, Adrian Gonzalez 1B, Jerry Hairston RF, Juan Uribe 3B,  Tim Federowicz C, Justin Sellers SS and Hyun-Jin Ryu P.

• Locke will be trying to break an eight-game LA winning streak against the Bucs.
• Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports features the travails of Jason Grilli.  
• The Pirates have second highest K rate in the majors with a 28.9% figure while their 6.9% walk rate is in the league's bottom third. The Pirates .172 batted ball in play average is the leagues worst (a combo of some bad luck and weak contact), as is their .185 OBP. And they're still the only team without a HR.
• As bad as the hitting has been, the pitching has been remarkably tough. The Pirates are the only team in MLB to not allow more than three runs in a game this season and go into today's match with a team 2.09 ERA, second in the league to LA; their 2.59 FIP is third. The staff's 9.42 K/nine and 2.3 BB/nine are both in the Top Five of MLB pitching.
• The Indy Indians beat Columbus and Dice-K yesterday 5-3. It was the bullpens, not the starters, that made the diff. Kyle McPherson got an early hook, going three IP and giving up three runs while Matsuzaka worked five and left with the lead. Vin Mazzaro tossed four frames for the win, striking out six, while Mike Zagurski and Bryan Morris closed out the contest with scoreless innings. LHP Kris Johnson takes the hill today for Indy.
• RHP Stolmy Pimentel, who was strong during the spring, will get the call for Altoona today.
• Lotta Bucco minor league moves reported by Baseball America. The most noticeable is the release of Jeremy Farrell, who was drafted out of Virginia in 2008 but never got it together for the Pirates.

Bucs Whitewashed Again 1-0

Man, when the Bucs packed up their moving van in Florida, they should have double checked the equipment; they apparently left their bats in Bradenton. The Pirates wasted another strong effort on the hill, mustering two hits in a 1-0 loss to Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers.

AJ Burnett took the loss. He wasn't dominating, giving up four hits and having some control issues with four walks in 5-1/3 frames that ran his pitch count up to 108, but he had his sit-down pitch working with nine more K and allowed but one run. It was one too many.

And that run wasn't pretty. With two outs in the third, Carl Crawford beat out an infield single (Clint Barmes gloved his hard short hop but couldn't recover to make a throw to first), stole second and beat the throw home when Mark Ellis roped a 3-2 fastball into left.

The Pirates had three guys on all night; two of them were lost to baserunning blunders. Starling Marte singled to lead off the night, went to second on a Neil Walker bunt - which in itself doesn't show much confidence in the hitters and with good reason as Marte was the only Pirate to reach second - but was gunned down trying to go to third on a grounder to short, a mistake that would drive a high school coach to drink.

Russell Martin drew a two-out walk in the seventh. He was eying second as the tying run, but never had the chance to test AJ Ellis' arm; Kershaw picked him off.

Jared Hughes, Mark Melancon and Tony Watson kept the Dodgers off the board, with Hughes working out of a bases-loaded, one out jam inherited from AJ in the sixth. Paco Rodriguez and Kenley Jansen finished the job for the Blue, with Brandon Teague working the ninth for his second save in two nights.

Yah, it looks bleak right now, reminiscent of the 2012 stumble out of the blocks. But this game had as much to do with an ace being absolutely dominating as with the bats being ice cold. Kershaw, going back to the end of last year, has given up one run in his past 35 IP and has tossed a pair of shutouts to open this year.

Jeff Locke takes the hill this afternoon. The Bucs wanted to match him up against South Korean rookie Hyun-Jin Ryu rather than Kershaw. Maybe it'll work.

• Marte had both Pirate hits, the first multi-hit game of the year for by Corsair. It's the third time in six games that the Bucs have been two-hit by their opponents.
• The Pirate batting line after five games: .117/.185/.145.
• In case you're wondering about last year's oddball Bucco record, there's still quite a way to go to approach it. To refresh your memory, the Bucs opened the 2012 season without scoring or allowing more than five runs in 18 games.
• Mike McKenry is the only Buc position player to not have an at-bat yet; he should get the call today, although he was by-passed during the last night game-day game cycle.
• Andre Ethier extended his hitting streak to five games. On the other side of the pillow, Matt Kemp went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts and a DP.
• The Dodgers stole three bases early on; Martin changed up the way he flashed the signs in response, suspecting his old teammates might have swiping his wiggles. It worked; they didn't steal another sack after the third. Still, from what we saw, it wasn't so much the signs as AJ that gave the Dodgers an edge on the basepaths.

Bucs v Dodgers, Notebook

AJ Burnett takes the bump against Dodger ace Clayton Kershaw tonight. Burnett whiffed 10 Cubbies in his opening effort while Kershaw tossed a complete game, four-hit shutout and homered in his outing against the G-Men, the first pitcher to post that Opening Day exacta since Bob Lemon in 1953. The game is on Root Sports and The Fan 93.7, with the opening pitch slated for 9:10 PM.

Pirate Lineup: Starling Marte LF, Neil Walker 2B, Andrew McCutchen CF, Gaby Sanchez 1B, Russell Martin C, Pedro Alvarez 3B, Jose Tabata RF, Clint Barmes SS and AJ Burnett P.

Looks like JT isn't going to be the two hole guy, at least unless he catches fire. Pedro drops to sixth in the order against lefties, a logical move.

Dodger Lineup: Carl Crawford LF, Mark Ellis 2B, Matt Kemp CF, Adrain Gonzalez 1B, Andre Ethier RF, Lui Cruz 3B, AJ Ellis C, Justin Sellers SS and Clayton Kershaw P.

• X-rays on RHP Jeanmar Gomez last night were negative. He has a bruise after catching a liner in the shoulder area last night. 
• Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs has a post on the week's wildest swings, and a Garrett Jones' hack at a ball that bounces in front of the plate made an appearance. Scroll down to the vid; Sullivan has a little commentary on Jones' rep as a "guess" swinger.
• Andrew Cutchen is doing his job at the dish, hitting .308 with four knocks and a couple of doubles so far. The only other Buc over the Mendoza line at .222 is Clint Barmes. He also has a pair of two-baggers, joining Cutch as the only Pirates with extra base knocks. Oddly enough, he's always the guy that gets pinch-hit for by Clint. Go figure.
• Dodger lefty Hyun-Jin Ryu, who goes against the Pirates tomorrow, brought one unique Korean custom to the show with him. He doesn't throw between starts, according to Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports, claiming it saves his arm. LA is OK with it; we wonder how the usually paint-by-the-numbers Bucco management would deal with that quirk.
• Got your number stat: The Dodgers' .724 winning percentage against Pittsburgh since 2001 is the best in the NL.
• Old Bucco reliever Daniel McCutchen got a 50 game suspension for failing a drug test, per a tweet from Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.
• A couple of late camp cuts had big nights at the dish for Indy. Alex Presley had three hits, including a bomb, and was a single away from the cycle while Jordy Mercer banged out a pair of doubles. Indy is 0-2; Presley and Mercer have accounted for eight of the 10 Tribe hits for 2013 as their strong springs carry over. Indy faces Columbus' Daisuke (Dice-K) Matsuzaka tonight, with Kyle McPherson on the hill for the Indians.
• Jameson Taillon climbed the mound against Erie today. His line was five frames, no runs on four hits and a walk with four K. He left after tossing 75 pitches. OF Andrew Lambo, trying to reestablish his brand, had a homer and three knocks, bringing his very early BA up to .417. The only down part - Erie ran at will against Taillon, swiping five sacks in five tries. He got the win as Altoona rolled to a 6-2 victory.

This Day In History: Comebacks, Clemente and Stuff...

Busy day in Bucco annals:

1951 - Rik Aalbert “Bert” Blyleven was born in Zeist, Netherlands. The Hall-of-Fame righty with the legendary hook pitched three seasons for the Pirates (1978-80) before being traded to the Indians for some beads after locking horns with Chuck Tanner. The Dutchman went 34-28 for the Bucs with a 3.47 ERA, six shutouts and worked 697-2/3 frames for the team. Oddly, his beef was getting pulled too quickly, so he apparently didn’t think 230+ innings/season was too much of a load.

1971 - It’s the little things that win ballgames. Before 39‚712 fans, the Pirates took a 4-2 win from the Phils at TRS’ first home opener. Dock Ellis won and laid down three sac bunts, one being a suicide squeeze to plate a score and another setting up an eventual run while the Phillies self-destructed with four errors that led to two unearned runs. Ellis went the distance, giving up eight hits and whiffing eight.

1973 - 51‚695 fans were on hand at Three Rivers Stadium as number 21 of Roberto Clemente was retired. The Pirates then beat St. Louis‚ 7-5‚ staging a eighth inning rally that saw the Bucs score five times after two were down, keyed by a Richie Hebner double and Gene Clines three-bagger.. Other honors for the Great One: PNC Park’s right field fence is now known as the Clemente Wall, and reaches 21’ high to commemorate his number while his statue sits outside the CF gates of the yard. And the players wore the famous round #21 patch on their uniforms for the season to commemorate Clemente after sporting black ribbons during spring training. At the All-Star Game in Pittsburgh on July 11th, 2006, players from both squads wore yellow wristbands with the initials "RCW" in honor of Clemente. He also has a street, bridge, and park named after him, a museum, a Susan Wagner statue and a handful of awards.

1982 - The Bucs’ home opener at TRS was cancelled after an April blizzard rolled across the mideast.

1988 - Bobby Bonilla went long from both sides of the dish in a 6-5 loss to the Phils at Veteran’s Stadium. It’s the second time he’d done it, and only he and Dale Sveum have pulled off that feat for Pittsburgh.

2000 - The Pirates beat the Astros 10-1. Brian Giles went 5-for-5 with two homers and a triple, accounting for four RBI & three runs scored. Francisco Cordova didn’t give up a hit until after one out in the 8th inning.

2003 - Kris Benson shut out the Phillies 2-0, scattering six hits over six innings, and helped end Jim Thome’s streak of 60 consecutive games on base, the longest since Mark McGwire reached base 62 games in a row in 1995-96.

2009 - Down a pair in the ninth at Busch Stadium, the Pirates rallied with two outs against Jason Motte to beat the Cardinals 6-4. With two away and Freddy Sanchez aboard, Adam LaRoche singled and pinch-hitter Eric Hinske doubled home Steady Freddy. Brandon Moss got plunked to jam the sacks, and Jack Wilson banged a three-run double to unjam them. Matt Capps came in to get the save for John Grabow’s win in the season opener.

Grienke Stifles Bucs 3-0

Well, the string of frustration continues for the Bucs. Zack Grienke spun a two-hit shutout during the 6-1/3 frames he worked and the LA pen shut the Pirates down the rest of the way as Pittsburgh fell to LA 3-0.

Jonathan Sanchez kept the Bucs in it until the sixth. It was 1-0 at that point, compliments of an Andre Ethier bomb in the second inning when he lifted a elevated two-out, 2-2 heater over the right field fence. The Pirate lefty worked out of a first-and-third jam in the fifth when he got Carl Crawford to chase, stranding the pair.

He had help containing LA that frame from Starling Marte, who made a nice snag of one dying liner and aggressively charged a Grienke single to hold AJ Ellis at third. But no such heroics were in store the following frame.

He lost Mark Ellis on a 3-2 pitch to open the inning, and that was followed by back-to-back doubles by Matt Kemp and Adrian Gonzalez off changeups to put the Dodgers up 3-0. That brought on the last guy to make the cut at camp, Jeanmar Gomez, and he was rock steady, working three innings and giving up just a hit. A caveat; he was brushed by a liner in the eighth, and is supposed to have precautionary x-rays, per Rob Biertempfel of the Trib.

Sanchez's final line was 5IP, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with four strikeouts. The only ominous sign was that his fastball lost a couple of ticks during that fateful sixth frame, indicating his arm isn't quite stretched yet. He tossed 88 pitches, which is not many for June but maybe a couple more than he's ready for in April.

As for the Bucs, all they could manage against Grienke was a Garrett Jones single that took a bad hop off of Ellis' mitt to roll into right and a Cutch knock up the middle in the seventh. At one point he retired 14 straight batter, and had a four-Bucco whiff streak. Cutch's single knocked out Grienke after 92 pitches, but didn't do much else - he was caught stealing (he has the green light, but when you're down by three late in the game, maybe a stop sign would have been more in order) and reliever Paco Rodriguez punched out Pedro.

Kelly Jansen walked a guy in the eighth, and closer Brandon Teague worked a 1-2-3 ninth as the Bucs never threatened.

In justice, the Bucs at least looked professional; they ran several deep counts off Grienke, though none resulted in a walk, and hit a few balls on the nose. He worked off a 90-ish fastball, never leaving a fat one. But right now, they'd probably be happy with a couple of bleeders to replace those loud outs.

Through four games this young season, the Pirates have scored six runs and gotten 15 hits, and none of those knocks has exited the yard yet. Hopefully this won't morph into a repeat of last season when it took the boys a few weeks before they figured out which end of the bat to hold. The Buc pitchers have held up their end of the deal, giving up just nine runs on 18 hits so far.

And mea culpa on yesterday's report; the Bucs will, as logic dictates, skip Jeff Locke's first turn and send AJ Burnett to the hill tonight to take on Clayton Kershaw.

• Russell Martin returned to the park that he made his MLB debut in back in 2006 and celebrated by throwing out his first base stealer as a Bucco, Carl Crawford. Martin is 1-for-4 so far on the season on swipe attempts.
• RHP Jameson Taillon makes his 2013 Altoona debut tonight against Erie. Gerrit Cole didn't fare so well in his opener yesterday, giving up three runs in four innings on five hits with a pair of K.
• The Pirates haven't won a series in LA since 2006.
• As to be expected in a pitching battle, the 40,607 fans got to go clubbing early. The game lasted just 2:37.
• Aaron Harang and Chris Capuano are in the bullpen for LA, which surprisingly never moved them during the off season. And Ted Lilly is working minor league rehab now and should return to action shortly.