Pirates rally just misses in Cinci...

Johnny Cueto dominated the Pittsburgh Pirates for seven plus innings before Pittsburgh sent him scurrying from the game in the eighth with a four run innings to pull within one run before the Aroldis Chapman thunderbolts blew them away in the ninth inning as the Cincinnati Reds held on for a 5-4 win.

Andrew McCutchen's tenth homer of the season scored three runs with his blast off Logan Ondrusek to give the Pirates hope of grabbing a huge victory from a huge deficit.
Brad Lincoln allowed all five Reds runs in four innings as he lost his first game of the season and fell to 3-1 on the year.
The Pirates finish the series in Cincinnati on Thursday.
Kevin Correia for Pittsburgh against Mike Leake for the Reds.

Pirate Hooks

1) Aroldis Chapman= WOW!
Nine pitches,eight strikes and three that hit triple digits on the radar gun.
I watched the Reds network and they were discussing Chapman's occasional control issues.
Did not see any of this on this night.
The three Pirates that batted might as well have held a pencil for the chances that they held with a bat....

2) Give full credit to long man Doug Staten for keeping those slim chances alive.
Long men are usually put in for sinking ship situations,but are important,if you want to have those miracle chances to win and Doug Staten did that job well in this as he allowed just one hit over three innings.

3) Andrew McCutchen's homer was great,but he was picked off first earlier in the game by Johnny Cueto.
I really hate seeing stuff like that from players with such speed,McCutchen complained to the umpire,but I thought that he was unable to get his hand back to the bag past Joey Votto's tag...

4) Casey McGehee was the starter at third base for the third night in a row in place of the struggling Pedro Alvarez.Alvarez did pinch hit and ripped a single to right.
Is this McGehee's chance to get back into the rotation and earn a few starts a week between first and third? Or it this simply a tactic to turn around the perpetually disappointing Alvarez...

5) I didn't think that Brad Lincoln's start was as bad as the numbers indicate.
The three run double into the gap by Ryan Ludwick off Lincoln was not off a bad pitch,Ludwick drove a good pitch into the right spot.
It happens sometimes..

Photo Credit:AP Photo