Bucs Can't Reach .500, Fall 6-2 in Miami

Bucs Can't Reach .500, Fall 6-2 in Miami

Kevin Correia has pitched extremely well on the road during his short career with the Pirates. He started off strong again tonight, but allowed 6 earned runs in 3.2 inning with five of the runs coming in the 4th inning as the Bucs fell 6-2 to the Miami Marlins. 

Correia fell to 1-4 on the season as Josh Johnson recorded his first win of the season for the Marlins. The Bucs were unable to reach the .500 mark as they fell to 17-19 on the season.

The Pirates opened the scoring in the top of the first with a two out single from Garrett Jones scoring Andrew McCutchen. The Marlin struck back quickly to tie the game on a Hanley Ramirez double in the bottom of the inning. 

With the game tied 1-1 in the third, the Bucs recorded back to back singles from Jose Tabata and Neil Walker to start the inning. But Andrew McCutchen stroke out and Pedro Alvarez grounded into a double play to swing the momentum to Miami.

 One inning later Correia would allow 7 straight batters to reach base (there was a sac bunt in the middle though) and the Marlins would push the lead to 6-1. The Pirate offensive never recovered from there, even though Mike McKenry homered late in the game giving the Pirates their second run.

There aren't many positive things to take out of games likes these. But the Pirates scored in the first inning for the second straight night and early runs are must for a team like the Bucs. Andrew McCutchen has hit safely in 8 of his last 9 starts and is batting a cool .339 on the season. 

Once again the bullpen did it's job pitching a scoreless 4.1 innings between Chris Resop, Tony Watson and Jared Hughes. Pedro Alvarez continues to improve on driving the ball to left and Jose Tabata is slowly building his average back up. Nothing to wet your pants about, but there's plenty of season left.

The Bucs start a 2 game stand in Washington Wednesday with Erik Bedard set to face Gio Gonzalez of the Nats.