Pirate’s Paul Maholm Blanks Astros
In his best performance of the season, Pirate’s Paul Maholm allowed only three hits in a complete-game shutout that gave the Pirates a 9-0 victory over the Astros in front of 16,638 at PNC Park on Sunday.
"It's been 2 1/2 years since I've had one," Maholm said. "So with that pitch count, I would have stayed out there for 130 to finish it off."
A spectacular display of pitching earned Maholm his second shutout in his146 career starts. His only allowed hits were all singles. "He was mixing his pitches pretty well, that's for sure, and we thought pitches were going to be in locations when we started our swing, and all of a sudden, it wasn't," Houston manager Brad Mills said. "He kept the ball off the barrel of the bat almost all day long."
The Astros were shut out for the 10th time this season and the loss was Houston's second straight to the Pirates after winning its first seven against the division rivals this season.
As impressive as Maholm was in securing the Pirates' third straight home series win, the offence had another remarkable day, which is nothing new as of lately.
One day after setting a season high with 17 hits, the Pittsburgh Pirates banged out 19 hits against Houston Astros pitching last night.
"When you put up runs like that, it makes it a lot easier to go out there and be aggressive," said Maholm, after teammates celebrated his performance by shoving a pie in his face."I tried not to throw too many of the same pitch in a row. I think that's the biggest thing."
The Pirates are a very good team when their offence is firing on all cylinders and Pittsburgh is trying to send a message to opposing teams by posting huge numbers. Call it an intimidating factor that might work if they can continue to generate such success in the upcoming weeks.
"It lets the guys know what they're capable of doing," Russell said of his team's two-day, 36-hit total. "Get that feeling that when we're aggressive, we can do some damage. It's a good building block for these young guys to get the feeling that we can score runs."
For the second game in a row, every Pirates starting position player recorded a hit and the woeful Astros were out-hit 19-3.
Angel Sanchez recorded two of the Astros' three hits off Pirates starter Maholm.
The Astros struggles were not solely limited to the hitting as their starting pitching needed to be much better. Roy Oswalt surrendered two earned runs on seven hits while striking out five.
"I couldn't really finish pitches," said Oswalt, who pitched in third and fourth inning before his exit. "Couldn't really get through pitches, and left two balls kind of spinning in the plate, and got a few hits."
Oswalt did not come out to pitch in the fifth inning because of a left ankle injury he suffered in the second inning after being struck by a Pedro Alvarez liner. Oswalt stayed in the game for as long as he could, but was unable to endure the pain for much longer.
In fact he was never the same at the mound. Three of his six pitches after being struck turned into Pirates hits, and the Astros fell behind 2-0 early.
“We're playing really good," said Cedeno, who now has at least one extra-base hit in five of his last six games. "We've got to keep going. I think we'll be OK. We have a very good team. We have to get better and better."
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