Pittsburgh– Pedro Alvarez continues to heat up as the slugger went 2-for-4 with a double, home run and three RBI and Edinson Volquez threw six shutout innings as the Pirates defeated the Mets 5-2 on Sunday afternoon to take the four-game series.
The Pirate offense, led by Alvarez, managed to produce more offense in the games first four batters against Bartolo Colon than their whole outing against him last time out as they quickly put two runs on the board. Starling Marte singled with one out and moved to third on a Neil Walker double. Ike Davis followed with a 2 RBI single to left. Alvarez added to the fun with a RBI double down the right field line.
“First and foremost, I don’t think [Colon] had is A-Game.,” said Hurdle. He can still compete and win games without it. The biggest difference was when balls were left out over the plate today, we put good swings on them.”
Alvarez did more damage to the Mets (37-45) in the fourth inning. Josh Harrison led off with a double to right center field. He then scored when Alvarez sent a Colon fastball deep into the Clemente seats to extend the lead to 5-0.
“I just tried to put good contact on it,” said Alvarez. “I was just trying to get J-Hay over and ended up putting a pretty good swing on it.”
Edinson Volquez worked 6 innings of shutout ball for the Pirates (42-40), but it didn’t come easy as the Mets had a runner on base in each inning he pitched.
Volquez worked himself out of jams in the third fourth and sixth innings. After one out hits from Eric Young and Ruben Tejada in the third, Volquez then struck out Daniel Murphy and got Curtis Granderson to fly out to end the inning. In the fourth, Volquez allowed a leadoff double to Lucas Duda before retiring the next two batters. He then intentionally walked Travis d’Arnaud before striking out Colon to end the threat.
The sixth inning looked to be the breakout inning for the Mets as they started the inning with back-to-back singles, but once again, Volquez put his foot down getting a fly out and an inning-ending double play to escape the jam.
“I pitched a lot of the game from the stretch,” said Volquez. “I was able to make good pitches when needed and was able to get out of there and escape.”
The Mets were able to get a couple runs off of Jared Hughes in the ninth, but Mark Melancon (Save #15) came in and stopped the bleeding to close things out.
Final Score: Pirates 5, Mets 2.
Starters Lines
Volquez (W, 6-6): 6 IP, 8 H, 1 BB, 1 IBB, 7 K’s. 98 Pitches (70 Strikes).
Colon (L, 8-6): 6 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 2 K’s, 1 HR. 82 Pitches (57 Strikes).
(Photo Credit: Getty Images)
