Jeff Karstens’ strong come-back edge Pittsburgh Pirates past Los Angeles Dodgers 4-1 – MLB Update
The Pittsburgh Pirates’ starter, Jeff Karstens struck back brilliantly with the ball helping his team earn a 4-1 win over league rivals Los Angeles Dodgers at PNC Park on Monday, May 9 to take his club 1-0 in the four-game series.
After giving an early RBI single to the Dodgers’ slugger Juan Uribe in the first inning, the right-hand ball thrower bounced back with swinging fast-balls. Overall, Karstens pitched five innings, yielded no run over seven hits, walked just one and made two
strike-outs to earn his second win of the season with a 3.62 ERA.
Karstens received full support from the relievers, as Mike Crotta, Joe Beimel and Jose Veras not all did give away any runs over their short spells. Out of these hurlers, just Crotta gave two hits. Closer Joel Hanrahan tossed a perfect last inning and allowed
just a single hit to earn his eleventh save of the season.
Garrett Jones hit a line-drive RBI 1-1 tier single off the Dodgers’ starter Chad Billingsley in the third. Billingsley recovered to hold the Pirates scoreless in his next five innings. However, before ending his seven innings spell, Billingsley gave another
run in the eighth inning.
The Pirates’ slugger, Neil Walker smashed a grounder to the right side of the field to earn an RBI single and the Dodgers’ skipper, Don Mattingly changed Billingsley with Hong-Chih Kuo. The move did not work as the Japanese ball thrower pitched two straight
balls and gave an RBI single to the Pirates’ slugger Lyle Overbay.
Overbay, who was the part of the three-homer win over the Houston Astros on Sunday, expressed his hitting and said, "We're not hitting but we're getting timely hitting. I would like to see us do it with more consistency. We've got a long ways to go," Overbay
further added. "I don't think we're where we need to be anyway. We haven't hit nearly as good as we should."
After this, he pitching a swinging strike, but again tossed three straight balls and allowed another RBI single to put his team under a 4-1 deficit.
The Pirates might have gained more runs, as Mattingly relieved Kuo with Mike MacDougal who took out two batters tossing ten strikes off eleven pitches over one inning.
Billingsley gave three runs over seven hits, walked three and managed four strike-outs over seven innings for his second loss of the season. He is now 2-2 with a 3.91 ERA in 2011.
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