Braves Out Dueled by Pirates, Fall 6-0

The Atlanta Braves met their match on Friday night squaring up against the Pittsburgh Pirates Wandy Rodriguez who went seven innings and only gave up one hit.  Rodriguez picked up his second win on Friday night and lowered his ERA to .56 for the 2013 season.  Coach Fredi Gonzalez spoke of Rodriguez “I’ve never seen him not pitch well, it seems like when he was with Houston he always gave us some fits.  He’s a left hander that cranks up 91-92mph, has a good curveball and knows how to pitch and you never get a good pass at him.”

Tim Hudson did not have the best of nights as he only went four innings giving up six runs on nine hits  and only recorded two strikeouts.  After the game Skipper Gonzalez said “Some of the balls weren’t sinking like they normally do.  When he’s getting fly balls, the balls aren’t sinking and he left them over the plate a little but we didn’t do anything offensively to help him out, Wandy was pretty good.”

The Braves offensively put two hits on the board, Jason Heyward had one off Wandy and the other in the ninth off the bat of Andrelton Simmons.  The Braves just didn’t seem to be there or they were just overmatched by Wandy Rodriguez.  Either way, the Braves didn’t look to hot tonight.

April 19, 2013; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Home plate umpire Sam Holbrook (left) reacts as Atlanta Braves center fielder

argues a called third strike against the Pittsburgh Pirates during the seventh inning at PNC Park. The Pittsburgh Pirates won 6-0. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

Late in the game B.J. Upton was called out on strikes and afterwards had a few words for the umpire and got thrown out of the game.  But what seemed to have mad B.J. so angry was that the umpire shoed him away…this was the same umpire that made the infamous infield fly ruling in last year’s wild card game, Sam Holbrook.  B.J.’s comments after the game “We had our disagreements about the pitch, obviously I didn’t agree with it, he thought it was a strike, I can live with that but the shoeing away part….no, I’m a grown man and you just don’t do that”.

After the game B.J.Gonzalez recalled “I can sympathize with B.J. on that, I think if matters were a little different B.J. would of stayed in the game, I didn’t think the pitch was that bad of a pitch but when B.J. comes back and asks or says something and the way he got waved off probably ticked him off.  It didn’t give me a chance to try to run out and keep him in the game, but it’s one of those things that boys will be boys and we’ll got out tomorrow and he’ll be in the lineup and get 3 or 4 hits.”

Saturday will feature a battle between former Pittsburgh Pirate Paul Maholm against James McDonald.  The game is scheduled for 7:05pm.