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Pirates pound Reds to complete sweep

May 27, 2007 - 11:16 PM CINCINNATI (Ticker) -- The Pittsburgh Pirates wasted little time pouncing on the Cincinnati Reds.

The Pirates scored five runs in the first and cruised to a 14-10 victory over the Reds on Sunday to complete a three-game sweep.

Jason Bay continued his personal destruction of Cincinnati pitchers, going 3-for-5 with a homer, three RBI and three runs scored, giving him totals of eight hits, eight RBI, six runs and two homers in the three-game set.

"I'm not saying I'm dying to get here but this is a good hitter's park," Bay said. "We struggled coming here but there are hits here that you might not get somewhere else that improve your outlook for your next at bat. You hope it carries over."

Bay fouled off six two-strike pitches before blasting a three-run home run on the 12th pitch.

"Actually it is easier to concentrate early in the game than it is late in the game," Bay said. "You want to see all his pitches. I fouled off some tough pitches. He (Saarloos) was always one pitch from getting out of the inning because he's a sinkerball pitcher."

"There isn't a better major league at-bat than the one Bay had in the first inning," Pirates manager Jim Tracy said. "But aside from that at-bat, we took some team at-bats. We took pitches to allow runners to steal, we hit ground balls to advance runners. The approach of the first five or six hitters was exceptional. We didn't expand the strike zone. We were going to have to add runs to win."

Pittsburgh jumped on Reds starter Kirk Saarloos (0-4), pounding the converted reliever for five runs, five hits and two walks in the opening frame. Saarloos was pulled before recording an out.

The veteran sinkerballer was making just his second start of the season after 20 appearances out of the bullpen. He fared better in his first start, holding the Washington Nationals to three runs and six hits in 5 1/3 innings to suffer a no decision.

"It was a struggle. I was trying to stop the inning and never did," Saarloos said. "I told Jerry that I'd work out of the bullpen tomorrow. When you don't get any outs in the first inning, you feel worse for the guys in the bullpen that have to get 27 outs."

Saarloos' replacements did not fare much, as four relievers combined to allow nine runs. The Pirates had five players record multi-hit games, with 2006 National League batting champion Freddy Sanchez driving in four runs with a pair of hits.

Cincinnati's hitters showed no quit, pounding out 15 hits and 10 runs, but could not compensate for the poor pitching.

Edwin Encarnacion and Adam Dunn hit back-to-back homers off Pittsburgh starter Zach Duke (2-5), and the surprising power surge of Alex Gonzalez continued with a solo blast in the sixth - the 10th of the season for the light-hitting shortstop.

"Our guys never think they are out of a ballgame," Cincinnati manager Jerry Narron said. "We could have rolled over but we didn't."

Dunn's second homer of the game closed the gap to 11-9 in the seventh, but the Pirates responded with three runs in the eighth to put the game away.

Duke lasted five innings, yielding five runs - three earned - and seven hits. Duke had an extra long bullpen session between starts to iron out a mechanical pitching flaw.

"The consistency is not quite there yet," Duke said. "I can focus on the positive pitches. I had three good innings and two bad ones."

Just lasting five innings helped the Pirates, according to Tracy.

"He was out of gas but I'll tell you what, to keep them scoreless in the fifth inning in the manner he did allowed us to save Matt Capps and (Domaso) Marte," Tracy said. "I didn't want to send him out for the sixth or have the bullpen inherit a mess rather than start the inning clean."

The Reds have lost six in a row to drop their record to a major league-worst 18-33