The Atlanta Braves saw their three-game winning streak snapped on Saturday night with Randall Delgado on the mound. The young righty had struggled in recent starts and was unable to consistently throw strikes, leading to an early exit after just 4.1 innings. He surrendered eight hits and three walks to the Pirates, who are statistically the worst offensive team in baseball, and gave up four runs.
Despite a few late rally attempts from the Braves, they fell short by a score of 4-2 to Pittsburgh.
The Pirates scored early and often on Saturday evening. Garrett Jones drove in a run in the first inning with a sacrifice fly to deep center field. Alex Presley doubled in the second to bring in another run, and Jose Tabata lined a ball to right field to score Presley in the following at-bat.
With Atlanta trailing 3-0 in the third, Dan Uggla continued his stellar play at the plate with an RBI-single to cut the deficit to two runs. Unfortunately for the Braves, Delgado surrendered another run in the fifth inning on a Pedro Alvarez double to make the score 4-1.
Jason Heyward doubled and stole a base to lead off the sixth inning, and Juan Francisco brought him home with an RBI-groundout. Still trailing by a score of 4-2 in the seventh, Michael Bourn led off the inning with a single but was quickly erased on a 6-3 double play from the bat of Martin Prado. With two outs in the ninth inning, Eric Hinske appeared to hit a solo home run just to have it caught at the wall in right field.
If there was a positive side to the game it would have to be the stellar bullpen work from Livan Hernandez and Christian Martinez. The two relievers combined to work 4.2 innings and allowed just one hit and one walk, striking out four in the process.
Game three of the four-game series will be played on Sunday afternoon at 1:35 ET. Tim Hudson is scheduled to make his return to the mound and will be opposed by Kevin Correia.
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