Pirates Can’t Capitialize, Go to Meek, Lose to Braves 6-1

What more can a fan say about the first two starts A.J. Burnett has made for the Pittsburgh Pirates? It’s sick. He battled in this game. The walks hurt, but he still put in six solid and gave the Pirates a shot at cooling off the white-hot Atalanta Braves.

The Buccos trailed 2-1 in the seventh inning and with some Atlanta lefties coming to the plate, Pirates skipper Clint Hurdle went to the bullpen and brought lefty Tony Watson to the hill. Watson blew up. He was lifted for Evan Meek in what we thought was a questionable move.

Meek has been 1-for18 with nobody on base this season. Pretty good, right?

Yhe trouble was, apparently nobody told Hurdle or Jeff Banister that the bases were now loaded. Why’s that a big deal, you ask? Meek has allowed the bad guys to get seven hits in twelve at-bats with runners on base. So guess what happened?

Yeah, Meek’s numbers didn’t improve.

The Pirates had many opportunities staring them square in the eye in this one, but failed to capitalize – so the team deserved to lose this game in a not-so-typical fashion. The Bucs dropped the game 6-1, snapping that crazy record streak.

Burnett struckout eight over his six innings and walked three. The walks came back to haunt the right hander, but seriously, Burnett deserved better.

Much better.

A couple good signs:

Pedro Alvarez walked twice giving us faith that he can return to the on-base machine he once was.

Alex Presley has an eleven game hitting streak. Curious how many of those were infield singles? Most of em.