The Pirates’ stay in Dodger Stadium, appropriately overrun with movie and television glitterati all weekend, was like a lot of other Hollywood productions: Based on a true story.
But still a little hard to believe.
With Korean rookie left-hander Hyun-Jin Ryu extending their torment on Sunday, the Bucs were swept out of Chavez Ravine, 6-2. Jeff Locke, the Pirates’ own young southpaw, couldn’t quite keep up with Ryu, allowing four runs — three of them delivered by Adrian Gonzalez — in six innings.
Ryu got the Dodgers rotation’s booby prize by allowing three hits (in 6 1/3 innings) against the Pirates. Before him, Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw had both allowed only two.
At least one of the Pirates’ four total hits on Sunday left the park, as Andrew McCutchen connected for the team’s first homer of the season in the first inning for a brief 2-0 lead.
McCutchen — 4-for-17 overall and uncharacteristically hitless in five at-bats against lefties — followed a single by Starling Marte with his homer into the left-field pavilion.
The lead lasted until the Dodgers’ fourth batter: Gonzalez singled to score Nick Punto and Matt Kemp — who had set the table with a double into the right-center gap, his second hit of the season in 19 at-bats.
When Kemp’s sacrifice fly gave the Dodgers a 3-2 lead in the third, it was the season’s first lead change in a Pirates game.
Gonzalez helped ensure there would not be another lead change by making it 4-2 with an RBI single in the fifth.
And in the season’s 45th inning, on the 674th pitch thrown to them, the Pirates finally hit one out. The honor belonged to the most likely candidate, McCutchen.
Going the first five games without a home run matched the Bucs’ season-starting dry spells of 1998 and 1967, but fell far short of the drought of 1943. The Bucs’ first homer of that season was struck on May 4, in their 12th game, by Vince DiMaggio.
Locke’s six innings matched the longest of his brief career, reached last season on Sept. 9 and Oct. 1. That latter effort yielded his first career win, which remains his only one in eight decisions. On Sunday, Locke yielded eight hits and four runs, with a walk and three strikeouts.
Locke did better at pitching than in the other aspects of a pitcher’s game. He didn’t break quickly to cover first on Juan Uribe’s fourth-inning bouncer to first baseman Gaby Sanchez for the Bucs to have a shot at a double play. In the top of the next inning, after John McDonald had drawn a leadoff walk, Locke twice squared around to bunt but took called strikes both times, then swung through strike three.
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