Someone Named Andrew Werner Helps Padres Sweep Pirates

Not the Bucs' finest hour, this. The Pirates gave up runs in the first inning, again, this time three of them. James McDonald walked the first three batters he faced. Then he threw a middle-middle fastball to Carlos Quentin, who just missed a grand slam and ended up with a two-run double. Mark Kotsay (who, to answer your next question, is actually still a major league baseball player) hit a sacrifice fly to make it 3-0.

Again, that's terrible, especially in San Diego. A 3-0 lead in the first would be more like 4-0 in most other parks. The game had barely begun, and the Pirates were already on their way to being swept. And not much happened after that, because the Pirates couldn't do much against Andrew Werner (who, to answer your next question, is actually a major league baseball player -- a guy who was signed as a non-drafted free agent in late 2010, has distinctly unimpressive stuff and was making his big-league debut). Werner walked four in six innings, but the Pirates had trouble making hard contact against him, and he got 10 ground ball outs.

The Pirates got a run in the fourth on Pedro Alvarez's RBI single, and the Padres got one back in the sixth when Will Venable led off with a double and Quentin knocked him in. The Bucs got one back on Gaby Sanchez's solo blast in the seventh, but were powerless against San Diego's bullpen.

That was a horrible series, and the day off tomorrow is much-needed. The Pirates are still, somehow, in the playoff race, so they'll need to recoup and avoid letting these losses pile up.