On a Monday night in Pittsburgh, with Oakland in town, two first place teams took to the field with two All-Star pitchers taking their respective place on the mound. What is this, Moneyball the sequel?
As hard as it was to imagine at the beginning of the year, the Pirates and A’s were the marquee game on Monday and will be the rest of the series. The pitching matchup couldn’t get better Monday as Bartolo Colon (yes, that Bartolo Colon) outdueled Jeff Locke en route to a 2-1 victory.
If you like good pitching, this was the game for you. Both pitchers, both the unsung ace of their staffs this year, lived up to the hype. Through six innings, Locke allowed just one hit and one run via a sacrifice fly. Locke ran into trouble in the seventh inning with the bases packed and two outs as he walked in a run to give the A’s a 2-0 lead.
The Pirates offense struggled again as they left 10 men on base and wasted ample opportunities to break through against Colon and the A’s. On two of the occasions, the final out of the inning came on a rocket shot, but hit in the wrong spot.
Andrew McCutchen lined a ball to left-center, but Coco Crisp robbed McCutchen with a Web Gem to end the threat in the seventh. In the eighth, Clint Barmes stepped to the dish with two outs, but his rocket was hit right to Yoenis Cespedes to end the inning.
The Pirates only run came in the seventh as Barmes scored via an infield single off the bat of Jose Tabata.
The loss for Locke is only his second on the season and his first since his first start of the year, April 7th. Looking to even the series tomorrow night will be Gerrit Cole (4-1, 3.94 ERA) as he’ll take the bump against Dan Straily (5-2, 4.52 ERA) for the A’s. First pitch is 7:05.
