> Sports > Local Sports

Email: "Petit, Diamondbacks nearly no-hit the Pirates"
*To:		<--TO Email REQUIRED!
*From:		<--FROM Email REQUIRED!

PITTSBURGH — Only one good thing could be said about the Pirates on Tuesday night — at least they got one hit. Yusmeiro Petit, in danger of losing his spot in the Arizona Diamonbacks’ starting rotation, took a no-hitter into the eighth inning as he beat the Pirates 6-0 at PNC Park in the opener of a three-game series. Shortstop Ronny Cedeno broke up the no-hit bid by lining a single to left field with none out following a 3-2 walk to Ramon Vazquez to open the inning. Thus, it remains nearly 38 years since the Pirates were last held hitless in a game, Hall of Famer Bob Gibson performing the feat on Aug. 14, 1971, for St. Louis at Three Rivers Stadium. Petit (2-5) wound up allowing just the one hit in eight innings while walking three and striking out four as the portly goggles-wearing right-hander missed throwing what would have been one of the more improbable no-hitters in baseball history. Leo Rosales pitched a perfect ninth inning to finish the one-hitter. “Obviously, their guy pitched a great game,” Pirates manager John Russell said. “We were fortunate to get one hit.” Familiarity played a hand in the Pirates getting that hit. Although Cedeno had never faced Petit in a regular-season game until Tuesday, they had squared off many times while playing winter ball in their native Venezuela. “I know him and I know he’s a good pitcher,” Cedeno said. “He doesn’t throw as hard as he used to when he was younger but he has better control now. “When I got the hit, he looked over at first base at me. I just looked back at him and kind of went, ‘Sorry, man, it’s part of the game.’ ” Petit with a 6.75 ERA in 11 games, 10 starts. The 24-year-old got a chance to take this turn in the rotation only because he shut out defending World Series champion Philadelphia for six innings the previous Tuesday in Phoenix to snap a 13-start winless streak that dated to last August. Petit was hammered by the Pirates just 11 days earlier in a 10-3 loss, giving up six runs and nine hits in 4 1/3 innings. The Pirates have lost eight of 10 games since then. “He threw all his pitches for strikes,” Russell said. “He had a good fastball, good breaking pitch.” Simply put, Petit had no-hit stuff. However, he said he wasn’t disappointed in coming up short of immortality. “Not at all,” Petit said. “I pitched a really good game and I’m very happy with it.” The Pirates have also been shut out three straight times by the Diamondbacks as they lost 7-0 and 9-0 in the last two games of a four-game series in the desert on July 25-26. The Pirates have been blanked 13 times this season. While Petit was trying to make history, Pirates All-Star left-hander Zach Duke (9-10) was losing for the fourth time in his last five starts. Duke gave up five runs and nine hits in five innings with two walks and one strikeout. The Pirates have scored two runs or fewer in six of Duke’s last nine starts but that didn’t matter much in this game as he gave up three home runs, including two to 28-year-old rookie second baseman Ryan Roberts, and one to Chris Young. It was the first multi-homer game of Roberts’ career. “I was running behind in the count all night and I left some pitches up in the zone and they hit them hard,” Duke said. Roberts went 4-for-5 with three RBIs. Mark Reynolds added three hits, though he failed to homer after connecting seven times in his previous seven games. Roberts hit his first home run, a solo shot, in the third inning to the Diamondbacks’ bullpen in center field to open the scoring. He and Young both hit two-run homers in the fourth to push the lead to 5-0. The Diamondbacks added a run off Joel Hanrahan in the sixth as Reynolds hit an RBI single.

 

Subscribe to Weirton Daily Times

Share: