• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Bay, Nady homer as Pirates avoid sweep

May 23, 2008 - 3:25 AM By Chris Adamski PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

PITTSBURGH (Ticker) - Jason Bay and Xavier Nady homered and Nate McLouth had a career-high four hits as the Pittsburgh Pirates snapped a three-game skid with an 8-4 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday.

Nady went 2-for-3 with two runs and an RBI, Chris Gomez had a two-run single and McLouth scored three times for Pittsburgh, which salvaged the final game of the three-game series.

Corey Hart homered and Rickie Weeks added his second blast in as many games for the Brewers, who produced a total of 19 baserunners but left 14 men on base.

"Any time you have a chance to sweep the series, you want to go ahead and take advantage of that and do it," Brewers manager Ned Yost said. "So there is frustration in that when you don't."

Hart broke a scoreless tie by blasting a leadoff shot in the fourth inning - his fourth of the season. But the Brewers, who had 14 hits, failed to tack on more as they left the bases loaded.

Bay answered in the bottom of the frame by belting a two-run shot - his fourth in the past eight games. After McLouth hit a one-out single, Bay hammered an 0-1 pitch from Brewers starter Dave Bush (1-5) deep to straight-away center for his 11th homer of the season.

"I hit the home run and up to that point we hadn't swung the bats very well, even in the first two games, and hitting's contagious so that kind of got things moving there a little bit," Bay said. "It was a little easier from there. We were playing with the lead for once in these past few games. It was a nice change."

Pittsburgh continued to pound Bush in the fourth.

Raul Chavez and starter Tom Gorzelanny had RBI singles that scored Nady and Adam LaRoche, respectively. It was the second RBI of the season for each, and the hit broke an 0-for-22 streak by Gorzelanny dating to last season.

The Pirates seized control of the contest by adding two more runs in the sixth. McLouth scored on a throwing error by first baseman Prince Fielder before Nady hit a two-run homer - his seventh - to right-center to give Pittsburgh a 6-1 edge.

That was enough for Gorzelanny (4-4), who won for the third time in his past four starts. The lefthander allowed two runs on eight hits and four walks in his five-plus innings, striking out two to improve to 3-0 lifetime against the Brewers.

Gorzelanny's night ended after pinch hitter Gabe Kapler singled in Bill Hall - who had three hits - in the sixth.

"I thought he threw the ball OK," Pirates manger John Russell said. "He's making progress. He's keeping the ball down. He got a lot of ground balls tonight. His consistency is still not exactly where we want it but he showed signs of it tonight.

"He got out of some jams. When things could have gotten away from him, he did a nice job containing the inning."

Milwaukee added single runs in the seventh and eighth. Joe Dillon had an RBI single in the seventh, and Weeks led off the eighth with a homer to left-center off Jason Grabow.

The Brewers have won just two of eight starts by Bush, who was rocked for six runs on nine hits in five innings. He had one strikeout.

"I made some bad pitches," Bush said. "Obviously I felt good and felt strong and then later in the game I just wasn't making good pitches. I was all of a sudden in some certain situations leaving the ball out over the middle of plate."

The Pirates had lost five of their previous seven coming in and host the Chicago Cubs on Friday. Pittsburgh has some much-needed momentum headed into Friday's series opener against the Chicago Cubs, against whom they are just 1-8 against this season.

"(This win was) probably bigger than most people would let on," Bay said. "I think a lot of people, early on (in the season) would say it's not that big of a deal, but I think it was.

"The Cubs have kind of had our number and if we were on a skid heading into that it could have been potentially a pretty grim outlook. The one game doesn't turn things around but at the same time it gives us a positive."