Coming into the game, the Pirates had a 9-0 record when A.J. Burnett started a home game. Equally impressive was Carlos Zambrano’s 8-1 lifetime record entering play. One of the two had to go and luckily for the Pirates and their fans, it was the latter of the two.
While things were pretty even early on, things took a weird turn in the fourth inning when the Pirates scored four runs.
What’s weird about the team scoring four runs in an inning? Nothing. Well, except the fact they did it while recording no hits and no official at bat until the ninth batter of the inning.
In fact, the inning looked like this: 10 men went to the plate in the fourth. HBP, HBP, Sac/E2, BB, Sac F7, BB, BB, BB, K, K. Four runs, no hits, three left on base.
Has Pirates manager Clint Hurdle seen anything like it before?
“I don’t know, I didn’t give it a lot of thought, but probably a lot of years ago,” Hurdle said. “Somewhere down the line you see everything before, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen four runs scored without a hit. Absolutely.”
The inning also threw Clint Barmes off guard.
“Not that I can remember,” Barmes said about seeing an inning like that before. “That was a pretty crazy inning to score the runs we did the way we did.”
The last time a team scored at least four runs in an inning without recording a hit was Sept. 23, 1998.
Getting lost in the craziness of the night was the fact that A.J. Burnett was once again very, very good.
Burnett pitched 7.2 innings, allowing just the one run, a home run to Justin Ruggiano, striking out three and surrendering just eight hits. Despite the lack of strikeouts, Hurdle thought Burnett was still dominate.
“A.J. was very, very good today,” Hurdle said. “What’s not dominate about retiring guys, giving up eight hits, but only giving up one run and that’s the solo home run? That’s dominate. It all depends on your definition of dominate.”
Burnett credited the win to Rod Barajas and stellar defense.
“The man behind the plate pays such attention to what’s going on and home I’m throwing things,” Burnett said. “I got a lot of ground balls today that had people diving everywhere. Walk made a great play, Barmy had a double play and you even got Jonesy diving in the outfield. It fires me up seeing guys out there busting it like that.”
Burnett said the fourth inning was something he never saw, but that’s why baseball is unpredictable.
“Never (seen anything like that),” Burnett said. “But that’s the game of baseball and that’s why we play.”
When getting pulled in the eighth, Burnett left to what has become a regular thunderous applause and a standing ovation for his efforts.
“It’s great man, it’s been a great atmosphere to be a part of,” Burnett said. “We’re definitely feeding off of them coming out and supporting us the way they are and they should, we got a good thing going here.”
The Pirates will look to sweep the Marlins tomorrow as Jeff Karstens (2-2, 4.15 ERA) will oppose Anibal Sanchez (5-6, 4.57 ERA) of the Marlins. With a victory tomorrow, the Pirates would make it 21 wins in their last 25 games at PNC Park.
Photo Credits: Getty Images
Discussion about this post