Pittsburgh Pirates humiliated by Philadelphia Phillies 3-8 in series’ opener – MLB Update
Pittsburgh Pirates were beaten by Philadelphia Phillies 3-8 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Monday, June 25 in the opening game of their four match series of the 2012 Major League Baseball regular season.
Hunter Pence provided the Phillies with an excellent start as he singled to right in the first inning to put his side 1-0 ahead. Carlos Ruiz also made his presence felt with an RBI Single to right as the Phillies took a crucial 2-0 lead.
However, the star of the show was Jimmy Rollins who hit his fourth home run in just five games to help Philadelphia take complete control of the situation.
Starting pitcher Joe Blanton pitched seven effective innings. Allowing just three runs and seven hits with eight strikeouts, he secured his seventh win of the season.
"It helps. It allows you to be more aggressive and if you make a mistake, it's OK," Blanton said.
Pirates’ starting pitcher Jeff Karstens allowed seven runs in five innings in his first appearance since April 17.
"It was a matter of not locating," Karstens said. "They hit some good pitches for hits and some bad pitches."
"We were aggressive, they started throwing the ball around, starting making mistakes and that helped us get four runs," manager Charlie Manuel said with a smile on his face.
"He's getting his timing down and swinging pretty good," Manuel said of Rollins in a post game interview.
Manager Clint Hurdle will be disappointed with Pirates’ performance on Monday afternoon. After beating the Detroit Tigers 2-1 in their previous series, the Pirates were hoping to achieve similar results in series’ opener but that did not turn out to be the
case.
In some ways, unreliability of Pirates’ offence has remained the biggest problem for them this season. The bullpen, on the other hand, has put up some masterful performances, helping Pittsburgh stay over the .500 win percentage mark throughout the season.
It will be interesting to see if Clint Hurdle and company can come up with the perfect winning formula in their upcoming games to replace Cincinnati Reds at the top of National League Central Division standings.
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