Pittsburgh Pirates Offense Explodes in Victory Over Padres

After dropping the first two games to the San Diego Padres the Pittsburgh Pirates were trying to avoid the sweep on Sunday. Through the first 3 1/2 innings it did not look promising.

The Padres led off the game with a home run and finished the first inning with four runs. This has come to be a very bad trend for the Pirates pitching staff, as they continue to give up runs early in games. The Padres increased thier lead to five in the second inning.

The Pirates would finally break through in the third inning when Neil Walker continued his hot hitting with an rbi single. Still, the Padres had the game under control, but things turned around in the bottom of the fourth inning.

In that fourth inning the Pirates would send 14 men to the plate scoring nine runs. The big hit, a grand slam, coming off the bat of Clint Barmes. His first grand slam of his career. Andrew McCutchen would also double in two in the fourth inning.

Walker already four for four would step up to the plate in the seventh and would go five for five and increase the Pirates lead to 11-5 with a solo home run. His fourteenth of the season.

Starting pitcher Erik Bedard would go five innings striking out six while giving up five runs with only three of them being earned. Improving his record to 7-12.

The Pirates will look to keep the momentum going as the Los Angles Dodgers come into town tomorrow night. This will be a big series for the Pirates as the Dodgers are only 2 1/2 games out of the wild card.