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Sheets goes distance, lifts Brewers past Pirates

May 22, 2008 - 2:44 AM By Chris Adamski PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

PITTSBURGH (Ticker) - Ben Sheets pitched like it was April.

Sheets, who had a spectacular first month of the season but had been winless in three starts in May, pitched his second complete game of the campaign and the Milwaukee Brewers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-1, on Wednesday.

The 29-year-old Sheets (5-1) allowed one run and 11 hits - including seven singles - with no walks and six strikeouts for the 15th complete game of his career.

"It's special, a lot of fun," Sheets said of a complete game. "They're all tough to get, and a lot of times it's what happens in the game (that makes them possible), and your teammates have a lot to do with a complete game, too.

"People overlook that, but it's making plays and getting runs, too, where you don't have to get pinch hit for."

Sheets was 4-0 with a 1.64 ERA while the Brewers won all five of his starts before May 1. But the team had lost each of his three May starts, with Sheets posting an 0-1 record with a 5.95 ERA prior to Wednesday's start.

"I felt like he was on top of his game the whole night," Brewers manager Ned Yost said.

"I felt good, I really did," Sheets said. "My back tightened up in probably about the fifth, then went away. It got a little stiff, but after that I got out there and it felt great. My arm felt great the whole time. That's a big plus. I threw a lot of pitches yet - it still felt the same (at the end). That kinda excites me. It was a good day."

Rickie Weeks homered and scored twice and Corey Hart went 2-for-4 with a run scored and an RBI for Milwaukee, which won for the second time after snapping a five-game losing streak.

Xavier Nady homered to account for the only run for the Pirates, who also got two hits apiece from Adam LaRoche and Chris Gomez.

Milwaukee took a 1-0 lead in the second when J.J. Hardy singled to drive in Hart, who reached via a ground-rule double.

Nady tied the game when he led off the fourth with his sixth homer, a shot into the bullpen over the left-center field wall.

"We couldn't quite get to (Sheets)," Pirates manager John Russell said. "We couldn't get the hits when we really needed them. When you've got a guy throwing like that, it's tough to score runs off him."

Milwaukee got an unearned run in the fifth when Weeks led off by reaching on a fielding error on a ground ball to first baseman LaRoche.

Two batters later, Ryan Braun tripled to drive in a run for the eighth time in his past 10 games. Hart singled him home two batters later to give the Brewers a 3-1 lead.

"Obviously coming off that last series, we weren't where we wanted to be," Braun said of his team getting swept by the Red Sox. "But now we've won this series and we'll try to go out and get a sweep (Thursday). This obviously gets us heading back in the right direction."

The Pirates have lost six of nine since having a six-game winning streak snapped.

"We got some hits," LaRoche said. "We just didn't put them together. ... It's frustrating. I definitely think we should have put up more then one run."