Dodgers-Pirates preview
PITTSBURGH -- It was a win, the Pittsburgh Pirates said, that could launch a turnaround. "It's nice to get back on track. It's nice to get a win," Matt Joyce said Friday after an 8-6 series-opening win over Los Angeles. "You know how our month has gone. It was cool to see some guys smiling out there and having fun. "Hopefully we can build upon it. That's what the good ones do. We just have to find our way and get back to how we win," The Pirates snapped a three-game losing streak and are 7-20 since a five-game winning streak in May. Could Friday's feel-good win have an impact on Saturday? "I think we're all optimistic, and then we'll go out and start the game (Saturday) and see where that takes us," said Pittsburgh manager Clint Hurdle, who got feted by his players after the game, which was his 1,000th win. There certainly are no guarantees that the Pirates have turned any corners or, at 35-39, are ready to climb back to or over .500. After all, they won the first game of this eight-game homestand, 1-0 Monday against San Francisco. They them promptly lost the other three games in that series by a combined 27-11. But Pittsburgh is at that you-gotta-start-somewhere place. "We're just waiting for that string of three or four or five (wins) in a row, but you've got to start with one first," Jordy Mercer said. "Anytime you can get a win against a good team -- they're a really good team -- hopefully it's the start of something we can carry over (to Saturday.)" The man on the mound for Pittsburgh in that win Monday was Jeff Locke, who is scheduled to start again Saturday. It was something of a redemption game for Locke, who had allowed a combined 18 runs in his previous two starts. But perhaps he can start an upswing as his teammates are hoping to do, or at least get back to his form from May, when he went 3-1 with a 3.98 ERA and .203 batting average against in his six starts. Locke (6-5, 5.44 ERA) beat San Francisco ace Madison Bumgarner Monday. Saturday, he will face Kenta Maeda. Locke is 103 with a 4.07 ERA in his career against the Dodgers. Maeda (6-4, 2.64 ERA) at one point was going to start Sunday instead, giving him an extra day of rest, but that was pushed up to Saturday, apparently because of the resilience he showed last Sunday. In his first game after taking a line drive to his right leg off the bat of Arizona's Paul Goldschmidt five days earlier, Maeda equaled a season high by throwing 107 pitches, lasted into the seventh and gave up one run on six hits, with eight strikeouts and three walks in Los Angeles' 2-1 win. "First and foremost, Kenta's got a lot of fight, a lot of heart," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters Sunday. "When you're not feeling 100 percent, to go out there and compete, that's what Kenta does." X-rays after he got knocked out of that June 14 game showed no breaks, and the fact that Maeda pitched so well Sunday and now doesn't need the extra day of rest would seem to indicate he has no lingering effects. |