Pittsburgh Pirates
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PITTSBURGH -- Less than two hours after the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals engaged in a fracas during batting practice, the Redbirds came out swinging -- their bats, that is -- in a five-run first inning Wednesday night at PNC Park.
It was a deep hole for the Bucs, and they couldn't quite find their way back out in an 8-3 loss before 21,506 of their home faithful.
As a sign of things to come for the Bucs, Cardinals leadoff man David Eckstein singled to right field off Pittsburgh starter Kip Wells and advanced all the way to third base when rookie Nate McLouth allowed the ball to get past him into the right-field corner. Each of the next three St. Louis hitters reached base safely, and John Rodriguez singled home two runs for a 3-0 lead. After Wells walked mound opponent Chris Carpenter to load the bases, Eckstein chased the right-hander from the game with an RBI single to center field.
"It happened so fast that you really don't have time to kick yourself because you are out there for 20 minutes and it's over. It's kind of a whirlwind," said Wells. "You stick with your game plan and try to get ahead and they kept getting base hits. I looked up and I was out of the game.
"It's obviously frustrating. I don't know how to say it other than it's one of those days where everything went where they wanted it to."
Wells (7-13) was tagged for five runs on six hits and two walks in two-thirds of an inning. He needed 38 pitches, 24 of which were strikes, to get through his shortest outing of the season.
Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon did not mince words when it came time to describing Wells' subpar outing.
"There was no command of the fastball. He went soft when he shouldn't have went soft. He was up in the zone with the changeups. It was just a horrible outing," said McClendon.
McClendon was at a loss to describe inconsistencies which have plagued Wells, who had allowed just one run over 14 innings in his previous two starts.
"After the last two outings, I'm thinking this guy's on his way and he's going to finish out this year strong," said McClendon. "To come out with this type of performance was just mind-boggling."
Ryan Vogelsong came on in relief of Wells and was effective in keeping the Pirates in the game. The only blemish for Vogelsong in his 4 1/3 innings was a Rodriguez solo home run in the fifth.
"Vogelsong came in and did a great job keeping us in the game at that point," said Wells. "It could have gotten a lot uglier than it did." But the damage had already been done.
Staked to a five-run lead, Carpenter (18-4) held on to become the first 18-game winner in the big leagues. Carpenter, who has won 10 consecutive decisions, limited the Pirates to three runs on four hits and two walks.
"[Carpenter] threw the ball pretty good and I thought we had some decent at-bats off of him at times," said McClendon. "But when you spot a guy like that five runs, it's going to be awfully tough to come back on him."
Rob Mackowiak accounted for all three Pittsburgh runs and came up a home run shy of hitting for the cycle. Mackowiak scored a run and had two RBIs for the Bucs. He improved to 9-for-17 lifetime against the Cardinals ace.
"[Mackowiak] has hit him well," said McClendon. "I think the one thing he does is commit himself to the other half of the field. He got a triple to center and a double to left-center. When he does that, he's going to be successful."
As McClendon predicted, the batting practice incident did not spill over into the game.
"It went just the way I thought it would go as far as being a clean game," said McClendon.
"The great thing about this club is we are able to put that stuff behind us and approach every single game the same," said Eckstein. "You've got to forget about it. If you let your emotions take over when you step on that field, it's not a good sight, so fortunately we put all that behind us and went out there and played a good game."
The Pirates have dropped 16 of their last 19 games against the defending National League champions