James McDonald tossed six plus innings of shutout baseball and the Pirates offense got just enough as the Pirates blanked San Francisco 2-0.
It wasn’t all that pretty, but McDonald was effective. San Francisco had at least one runner on base in every inning except the eighth. But they were unable to come up with a key hit to push a run across.
The Pirates collected three straight hits off of Madison Bumgarner to start the second. Neil Walker singled and Steve Pearce doubled. A single from Chris Snyder scored Walker with the first run of the night. But Bumgarner stuck out Pedro Alvarez and got Brandon Wood on a shallow fly out before whiffing McDonald to end the threat. Other than that inning, Pittsburgh collected just two more hits off of Bumgarner over six innings.
Dan Runzler relieved and got into trouble in the seventh. Alvarez and Wood singled. Two outs later it looked like the Pirates might come away empty. But Jose Tabata hit a big two out single off Guillermo Mota to make it 2-0.
Joel Hanrahan put two men on in the ninth before getting Miguel Tejada to hit into a game ending double play.
McDonald walked four and gave up four hits. He struck out three. Bumgarner gave up one run on five hits in six innings. He struck out seven and walked just one.
The Good
Walker and Pearce each had two hits.
Hopefully McDonald will build on this success.
The Bad
Hanrahan was shaky in the ninth but got the job done.
Bucs bats stay silent.
The Rest
Last time McDonald was unscored upon was 9/13/10 against the Mets when he went eight innings. This was the ninth career appearance and second start for McDonald against the Giants. He came into the game 0-1.
Bumgarner had not faced the Pirates before this game.
Pittsburgh came into the game with the second worst offense in terms of runs scored in the National League.
Resop has gone eight straight appearances without allowing a run.
