Pirates pound Florida, 9-1, behind Mackowiak’s grand slam
PITTSBURGH – Rob Mackowiak hit his second career grand slam and drove in five runs and the Pirates won their ninth in a row against the Marlins in Pittsburgh, roughing up Florida starter Brian Moehler in a 9-1 victory Wednesday night. Florida dropped its seventh in eight games overall and extended its longest losing streak in an opposing NL city since losing nine in a row in Philadelphia in 2000-01. The club record for consecutive losses on the road is 11 in Cincinnati from 1998-2000.
Jack Wilson went 4-for-4 and scored twice and his aggressive base running led to the final run against Moehler (2-3), who came into the game with a 1.97 ERA – the fourth lowest in the NL – before giving up five runs and 10 hits in 5 1-3 innings.
Josh Fogg (4-3) made his most effective start in nearly a month, limiting the Marlins to one run and five hits in six innings after yielding five runs in five innings in his previous start against Cincinnati. He had allowed at least two runs in each of his last four starts since holding Arizona to one run in seven innings on May 7.
The Pirates came into the four-game series with an NL-worst 7-13 record at home, but will go for a four-game sweep Thursday night against Marlins eight-game winner Dontrelle Willis. The Pirates haven’t lost at home to Florida since an 11-1 decision on Sept. 8, 2002.
Mackowiak, who hit .391 in May, had a run-scoring grounder in the second, then hit his second career grand slam in the seventh off reliever Guillermo Mota to make it 9-1. The Pirates had loaded the bases without hitting the ball out of the infield on groundball singles by Jason Bay and Jose Castillo and a Daryle Ward walk.
Mackowiak’s other career grand slam was a game-winning shot May 28, 2004, in the first game of a doubleheader against the Cubs, on the day his wife gave birth to the couple’s first child. That same night, he hit a tying two-run shot in the ninth inning of the second game, which the Pirates went on to win.
This grand slam wasn’t nearly as dramatic, after Matt Lawton and Tike Redman had given Fogg a 5-1 lead with two-run singles in consecutive innings against Moehler, who hadn’t allowed more than two runs in any of his 11 previous games this season – including seven starts.
Humberto Cota and Wilson doubled ahead of Lawton’s single in the fifth, and Mackowiak and Wilson singled and scored on Redman’s pinch-hit single in the sixth. Wilson scored from first base on the single, failing to stop at third after he saw right fielder Juan Encarnacion preparing to throw to second rather than the plate.
Wilson, who spent most of the first two months of the season batting below .200, has six consecutive hits over two games to improve his average to .224.
Salomon Torres followed Fogg with three scoreless relief innings for his first save.
NOTES: Moehler is winless in his last three starts. … Florida is 3-12 in PNC Park, which opened in 2001. … Fogg didn’t allow a homer after giving up nine in his first nine starts. … The Pirates are 20-16 since starting the season 4-11.