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Nats Rally off Morton, Earn Split

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Charlie Morton was tough through five, allowing just two hits and no runs. The Pirates staked him to an early 3-0 lead as Andrew McCutchen homered leading off the home half of the first and the Pirates tacked on two more against Nats starter Garrett Mock.

The Pirates would not score again until the game was all but over. They had Mock on the ropes in the fifth. He was pulled after giving up a single and a pair of walks before retiring a hitter. Enter Tyler Clippard. He got Delwyn Young to hit into the 1-2-3 DP and then Andy LaRoche popped out to end the inning.

The Nats put five men on and scored four of them in the sixth to take the lead. The big blow was a three run tater from Adam Dunn. Jeff Karstens started the 7th with a pair of strikeouts, but would get no more outs. Karstens gave up four runs, including a two run dinger to Ryan Zimmerman, before being pulled.

Morton was charged with the loss after giving up four runs in six innings. He struck out two. Tyler Clippard was the winner in relief after tossing 2-1/3 hittless innings. Mike MacDougal was summoned with two on and two gone in the 9th. He got the last hitter – Young – to end it and earn the save.

The Good

Ryan Doumit had his first three hits.

McCutchen had two more hits.

The Bad

For the second straight game, the starter was in control only to have it wrestled from him late in the game.

On Baseball Tonight, it appeared that Lastings Milledge didn’t run hard when he hit a smash that Zimmerman fielded cleanly. He threw to second to get Morton and the relay to first easily retired Milledge. That is not going to work.

Young was hitless and left five men on.

The Rest

This was Doumit’s first three hit game since April.

McCutchen had 9 hits and four dingers in the four game series. For the entire month of April 2008, Adam LaRoche had 15 hits and one homer.

 

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