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Pirates seek series win over Reds

Apr 18, 2011 - 2:37 PM (Sports Network) - The Pittsburgh Pirates will try to slug their way to a series victory this evening when they wrap a four-game series with the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park.

The Pirates have won just three times in nine games since a 4-2 start, but two of those victories have come in this series. That includes Sunday's 7-6 victory in which Andrew McCutchen and Jose Tabata led the game off with homers as part of a four-run first inning of Cincinnati starter Edinson Volquez.

It marked the third time in club history that Pittsburgh has begun a game with consecutive homers, last doing so on July 5, 1982.

McCutchen ended with three hits, driving in the go-ahead run in the eighth inning, and Garrett Jones also went deep in the victory.

"It was good for us to get what we got," Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said of the four-run first inning.

Cincinnati countered with three homers of its own, getting longballs from Jay Bruce, Miguel Cairo and Jonny Gomes, but still lost for the third time in four games. Bruce ended with four hits as the Reds stranded 13 runners and left the bases loaded in both the sixth and ninth innings.

Cairo started at second base with Brandon Phillips missing a third straight game due to a strained groin. Phillips was able to take infield practice on Sunday and remains day-to-day.

Pirates starter Kevin Correia aims to bounce back from his first loss of the season in tonight's finale.

After winning his first two outings, the right-hander took a loss to the Brewers on Wednesday, getting charged with six runs -- four earned -- on five hits and two walks over six-plus innings of a 6-0 setback. Correia actually carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning before giving up four runs, three on a homer by Milwaukee's Prince Fielder.

"We had a good game plan that was working and I kind of went against it that [sixth] inning," Correia told Pittsburgh's website. "I got hurt. I was kind of staying with hard pitches down, and that one [to Fielder], I just flipped a curveball up there. I hadn't been throwing him that pitch yet, and he was just on it."

The 30-year-old, who has a 2.70 earned run average on the season, is 6-1 with a 4.66 ERA in 13 career games versus the Reds, including eight starts.

Southpaw Travis Wood will make just his second career start against the Pirates tonight and beat them the only other time he faced them, on Aug. 2 of last year. He threw seven scoreless innings in that one, working around two hits and one walk.

Wood has sandwiched two great starts around one really bad one. He was drilled for six runs over five innings of a loss to the Diamondbacks on April 8, six days after holding Milwaukee to a run over seven frames for a win. Wood bounced back from his previous outing by throwing 6 2/3-innings of one-run ball, but the 24-year-old did not factor into the decision of a 3-2 loss.

The Reds won 10 of 16 versus the Pirates last year, including five of seven at Cincinnati.