Lehigh Valley 1, Indianapolis 0 – Daniel Cabrera started and gave up 1 run over 6 innings. Bryan Morris pitched 2 scoreless innings of relief without giving up a hit. Jeff Clement and Matt Hague were both 2 for 4. Jose Morales went 1 for 2 with a walk.

Altoona 4, Bowie 3 – Nathan Baker started and gave up 2 runs over 4 2/3 innings. Duke Welker pitched 2 scoreless innings of relief. Robbie Grossman was 1 for 5 with a triple. Kelson Brown went 3 for 5 with a double and a triple. Ramon Cabrera was 1 for 3 with a double. Quincy Latimore went 2 for 4. Elevys Gonzalez was 1 for 3.

St. Lucie 6, Bradenton 3 – Jameson Taillon had easily his worst start of the year giving up 6 runs over 5 2/3 innings. He struck out 4 and walked 2. He gave up 7 hits, 2 of which were home runs. Gift Ngoepe was 3 for 4 with a double. Carlos Paulino went 2 for 3 with a triple. Dan Grovatt and Andy Vasquez were both 1 for 3.

St. Lucie 4, Bradenton 0 – Hunter Strickland started and gave up 4 runs in 2 1/3 innings. Eliecer Navarro pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings of relief. Gift Ngoepe, Mel Rojas, Stefan Welch, and Justin Howard were all 1 for 3, with Howard hitting a double. Kawika Emsley-Pai and Benji Gonzalez bot went 1 for 2.

Lexington 13, West Virginia 7 – Ryan Hafner started and gave up 7 runs (6 earned) over 3 2/3 innings. Alen Hanson was 3 for 5 with a double and a home run, his 6th of the season. Dan Gamache was 1 for 3 with a walk. Willy Garcia was 1 for 4 with a double. Junior Sosa went 2 for 3 with a home run, his 1st of the year. Chris Lashmet was 1 for 1.

WP: Gio Gonzalez (5-1, 2.22 ERA)
LP: Erik Bedard (2-5, 3.07 ERA)
SV: Henry Rodriguez (9, 4.32 ERA)

Erik Bedard was cruising. It was the 6th inning and he had just struck out Bryce Harper and Ryan Zimmerman to set down 11 straight National hitters. But then former Pirates Adam LaRoche and Xavier Nady hit back-to-back homers to give Washington a 4-1 lead.

Josh Harrison hit a 2-run homer in the 7th to cut the lead to 4-3, but newly promoted Evan Meek quickly gave those back and then some as he loaded the bases in the following inning. Laroche, once again, dealt a blow with a 3-run, bases clearing double to put the Nats up 7-3. The Pirates added one in the 8th, but that would be all they would get.

Andrew McCutchen went 2 for 4 and is now hitting .344/.404/.488 on the year. In his career against the Nationals, he is 36 for 80 (.450) with eight home runs, the most against any team he’s faced.

I’d like to say something about Evan Meek’s inning of relief. He gave up three runs, which essentially cost the Pirates the game, but he looked a lot better than he did just a couple of weeks ago. His average fastball was 94.2 mph and hit as high as 96.3 mph. His average fastball for the season was 92.7 mph going into today. No he just needs to stop walking people.

Josh Harrison was 2 for 3 with his first homer of the season. Clint Barmes was 0 for 4 with three strikeouts. I still don’t think it is time to play Harrison over Barmes, but that time is getting closer. I think I’ll actually have a more detailed post about that later this evening or tomorrow morning.

Jared Hughes pitched a scoreless 8th inning of relief and has now pitched eight straight scoreless innings out of the bullpen. His ERA is down to 1.31 over 20 2/3 innings this year.

Lehigh Valley 4, Indianapolis 0 – Jeff Locke started and gave up 3 runs (2 earned) over 7 innings. He struck out 6 batters and walked just 1. Starling Marte was 1 for 4 with a double. Brandon Boggs went 1 for 3 and Jose Morales was 1 for 3 with a double.

Altoona 7, Bowie 3 – Tim Alderson started and gave up 3 runs over 5 innings. He struck out 3 and walked 1. Mike Colla pitched 3 scoreless innings with 5 strikeouts. Tony Sanchez was 1 for 3 with a walk. Matt Curry went 1 for 4 with a triple. Miles Durham was 2 for 4 with a double. Elevys Gonzalez went 2 for 4 with a triple.

WP: Josh Johnson (1-3, 5.36 ERA)
LP: Kevin Correia (1-4, 4.50 ERA)

The Pirates grabbed an early lead with a run in the 1st inning, but Kevin Correia quickly relinquished that lead and then the wheels came off in the 4th inning when he gave up five runs before being removed from the game.

The Pirates added a run in the 7th with a solo homer by Michael McKenry, but they were in too big a hole to ever really threaten the Marlins at any point after the 4th.

The Pirates bullpen pitched another 4 1/3 scoreless innings today, which means they are on a 16 inning scoreless streak and now have a 2.44 ERA on the season.

Alex Presley was 0 for 3 as he continues his slump. He is 0 for his last 14 and 2 for his last 24. He really needs to get going because he is pretty much useless if he is not hitting since he isn’t going to get on base by walking.

Anyways, they are running a contest throughout today and tomorrow on Twitter, so be sure to enter for you chance to win tickets and have some fun reliving some past experiences.

Here is their official press release:

SHARE YOUR FAVORITE #PIRATEMEMORIES TO WIN TICKETS!

Pittsburgh, PA (PittsburghNewsWire.com) — What’s your favorite Pirates memory? Clemente’s 3,000th hit? Maz’s World Series-winning home run in 1960? The “We are Family” series in ‘79?

On Tuesday, May 15, The Topps Company is asking fans to share their favorite Pirates memories as well using the new Topps Pennant app and the #piratememories hashtag on Twitter. With 50 tweets, a lucky fan will win a pair of free tickets to the Pirates home game against the Cubs on Saturday, May 26.

The promotion will be running from Tuesday, May 15 at noon until Thursday, May 17 at the start of the 7pm game. We hope this is a fun promotion the Pittsburgh faithful will enjoy.

For more information check out: http://pennant.topps.com/pirates

For product videos check out: https://vimeo.com/topps

Steve Blass and Greg Brown know what's up.

I’ve had quite a few people ask me over the past couple of days what the Pirates were doing with their hand gesture. So I figured I’d write a post about what they are doing.

Zoltan, for those who don’t know, is the wise and powerful leader of a cult of people in the movie “Dude, Where’s My Car” starring acting legends Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott.

Apparently, the Pirates watched the movie together one day and thought it was funny so they decided they would start doing the Zoltan sign.

It’s awesome, and you all should make yourselves familiar with it, because hopefully we’ll be seeing a lot of it in the coming months.

Zoltan!

Indianapolis 1, Norfolk 0 – Justin Wilson started and pitched 3 scoreless innings, but was removed due to tightness in his groin [story]. Rick VandenHurk pitched 5 scoreless innings of relief. Doug Slaten pitched a scoreless 9th for his 7th save. Starling Marte returned to the lineup for the first time since being struck with a pitch in the hand on May 6th. He went 0 for 3. Jeff Clement was 2 for 3. Jeff Larish went 1 for 3 with a double.

St. Lucie 4, Bradenton 1 – Tyler Waldron started and gave up 4 runs over 5 innings. He gave up 10 hits and 1 walk, with 3 strikeouts. Jason Townsend pitched 2 scoreless innings of relief. Alex Dickerson was 1 for 3 with a walk. Stefan Welch went 1 for 4 with a homer, his 6th of the year. Dan Grovatt and Wes Freeman were both 1 for 3 with Freeman getting a double.

West Virginia 3, Lexington 2 – Nick Kingham gave up 2 runs over 5 innings. He struck out 6 and didn’t walk a batter. Porfirio Lopez pitched 3 scoreless innings of relief with 4 strikeouts and no walks. Alen Hanson went 3 for 4 with a double and a walk. Kirk Singer was 2 for 4. Willy Garcia went 2 for 3 with a double and a walk. Junior Sosa and Francisco Diaz were both 1 for 3 with Sosa adding a walk.