Pittsburgh Pirates Turn Miller Park into a Fun House

At one time Miller Park was called the House of Horrors.  No longer.  We’re calling it The Fun House.

The Milwaukee Brewers trotted out a bunch of Larry’s last night as the Pittsburgh Pirates turned into an offensive juggernaut.

Andrew McCutchen tripled in the third inning to plate Josh Harrison.  Neil Walker took an inside Randy Wolf pitch to right field to plate Cutch.  Rod Barajas followed with a hard hit single between third and short and Nick Leyva waved Walker home.  Ryan Braun charged the ball and fired home, but the throw was to the first base side of the plate just enough to allow the Bucs second baseman to slide in ahead of the tag.

On the play Matt Hague went to third and Barajas chugged to second.  Jose Tabata ripped a two-out line drive right at Nyjer Morgan, but the centerfielder decided to charge the ball.  By the time he broke back toward the fence the ball was just over his outstretched glove, clearing the bases.  The third out of the inning turned into a three-run double giving the Bucs a 6-1 lead.

Nyjer Morgan had put the Brewers on the scoreboard with a bomb in the first inning off Kevin Correia.  Corey Hart copied him in the sixth inning with a blast to right field.  It was Correia’s ninth homer allowed this season.

Jose Tabata and Josh Harrison got the merry-go-round going again in the eighth inning.  McCutchen ripped a double off the wall in right field to make it 8-2 Bucs.

Correia was chased after 5.2 innings of five hit baseball.  A cavalcade of relievers dodged trouble the rest of the way.  Doug Slaten recorded two outs.  Jared Hughes got two including a strikeout.  Brad Lincoln got some work in hitting 96 mph on the stadium gun a few times. Tony Watson got Lincoln out of an eighth inning jam with a strikeout after Lincoln gave up a hit and a walk.  (Lincoln threw 22 pitches/10 strikes)

Juan Cruz returned from taking care of business to pitch the ninth.  He went to a full count on Carlos Gomez before getting him to chase a slider out of the zone for a whiff.  A flyout to Gorkys Hernandez in left and then another whiff  sent the Brewers faithful out of the fun house with very few smiles.

I feel bad for them.

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Correia got some run support and picked up his second win of the season.  He came into the game receiving the fourth fewest runs from his teammates.  The Bucs defense was strong behind the right hander snaring several hard hit balls by the Brewers early in the game.