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LaRoche's key hit helps Pirates take doubleheader vs. Reds

Aug 29, 2007 - 4:41 AM By Chris Adamski PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

PITTSBURGH (Ticker) -- Adam LaRoche and the Pittsburgh Pirates decided twice was nice when facing the Cincinnati Reds.

A line-drive single by LaRoche in the bottom of the eighth inning drove in Freddy Sanchez for the winning run as the Pirates rallied to finish off a doubleheader sweep of the Reds with a 3-2 victory Tuesday night.

Sanchez and Jose Bautista each had two hits and scored a run for the Pirates, who have won six of their past seven and nine of 11. Pittsburgh won the first game, 6-4, behind five RBI by Sanchez.

"It's tough to win a doubleheader it's not easy," Sanchez said. "And anytime you can go out there and take two, especially from a team that's hot themselves, it feels good."

Norris Hopper had a career-high four hits and Brandon Phillips and Juan Encarnacion each went 2-for-4 for Cincinnati, which entered the twi-night doubleheader riding a six-game winning streak.

Shawn Chacon (5-4), the fourth Pittsburgh pitcher, earned the win by retiring the final batter in the top of the eighth. In the ninth, closer Matt Capps surrendered a lead-off single to Alex Gonzalez before retiring the next three batters in order to record his second save of the day and 15th of the season.

The Pirates trailed by a run in the seventh before a two-out pinch-hit single by Matt Kata off reliever Gary Majewski scored Bautista to knot the game at 2-2.

With one out in the eighth, Sanchez tripled into the notch in left-center off of Bill Bray (3-1), setting the stage for LaRoche's single up the middle past the drawn-in infield.

"The gapper I hit was definitely a situation where I was looking (triple) the whole way and trying to get to third with less than two outs so then whatever (Adam) could do to get me in would work," Sanchez said. "LaRoche came up big."

Sanchez was a combined 5-for-7 with a walk, five RBI and two runs scored in the twin-bill.

In this contest, seven of the first 10 Cincinnati batters had hits off of Pirates starter Paul Maholm, who benefited from a caught stealing and a double play to avoid major damage. However, his luck ran out with two outs in the second when Reds starter Bronson Arroyo drove in Edwin Encarnacion with a double before he himself was plated by a triple by Hopper to give Cincinnati a 2-0 lead.

"(Maholm) got knocked around a little bit early, but he never wavered, he never changed his approach," Pirates manager Jim Tracy said. "He kept throwing ball in the strike zone, kept challenging batters. He made pitches when he needed them to be."

Despite the shaky start, Maholm scattered 10 hits and two walks in his seven innings.

"It's one of those things where you have to make an adjustment," Maholm said. "I settled down and just kept us in the game."

Arroyo had retired 10 straight until the bottom of the fifth when three straight singles capped by an RBI base hit by Jose Castillo made the score 2-1.

Even though he allowed only one run on six hits in six innings while hurling just 80 pitches, Arroyo surprised Reds manager Pete Mackanin when he told him he had nothing left to come out for the seventh.

"It was one of those days where I just felt real shaky," said Arroyo, an ex-Pirate. "I just thought the bullpen has been throwing the ball pretty good and thought they had a better shot at getting nine outs than I did. It's just one of those days. Sometime you feel like you can throw 150 pitches and sometimes you don't. I felt I should be honest with him because when I've got 115 and I want to go back out for eighth, I want him to trust my judgment."

After closing to within 6 1/2 games of first place - the closest they had been since May 4 - the Reds fell back to eight games back after the losses Tuesday.

"It sure would have been nice to squeak out one of these two," Mackanin said. "But we're not going to get down on ourselves. "We've just got to write it off, have a short memory, put it behind us and start tomorrow over again."