Pittsburgh Pirates lose to Chicago Cubs 0-2 despite Erik Bedard’s heroics – MLB Update
Pittsburgh Pirates lost to the Chicago Cubs 0-2 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Monday, July 23 in the opening game of their three match series of the 2012 Major League Baseball regular season.
For the Cubs, Alfonso Soriano had a memorable time on the plate as he played a key role in deciding the outcome of the clash. The left fielder drove in crucial runs, going 2-for-4 at-bat. With his impressive outing on Monday, he also improved his average
to .271. Shortstop Starlin Castro scored both runs for Chicago.
Pirates’ starting pitcher Erik Bedard tossed up seven effective innings but he was outpitched by Cubs’ starter Jeff Samardzija. Bedard took his 11th loss of the season, giving up just two hits and a run with season high 11 strike-outs. It will
be fair to say that he was unlucky to end up on the losing side.
Samardzija, on the other hand, gave up just a hit with five strike-outs to pick up his seventh win of the season.
"I could give you a long list of things that (Dempster) has done to help me become a major league pitcher," Samardzija said. "He's been a great teammate and a great friend and we all love his veteran presence on a young pitching staff. However, trades and
things are out of our control."
"Sometimes you just get shut down," Centre-fielder Andrew McCutchen said in a post game interview. "It's happens to the best of teams and it happens to the worst of teams."
Pirates’ offence paid the ultimate price for their unforced errors on Monday as they took a humiliating defeat in series opener against the struggling Chicago Cubs.
Clint Hurdle and company were looking to start the series on a winning note to narrow down the gap between themselves and National League Central Division leaders, Cincinnati Reds.
However, a large number of base running mistakes did not help the cause as the Pirates wasted critical scoring opportunities. It will be interesting to see if they can come up with better tactics and execution in the next two games to stay in the playoff
race.
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