Bucs: Pirates Lose to Braves, 2-0

PITTSBURGH — Few people in Pittsburgh probably knew who Jair Jurrjens was before Tuesday night.

Surely many more now know his name, as the Braves starter pitched 7 2/3 innings of scoreless baseball in a 2-0 win. Jurrjens allowed 6 hits and struck out four while walking just one batter.

"I'm just trying to throw strikes," Jurrjens said. "It's not easy coming from a day off trying to pitch and the position players over there also had a day off, so you're trying to take advantage of that and just throw strikes and make them get themselves out."

Pirates starter Charlie Morton had a good outing as well, but couldn't steal the headlines from Jurrjens. Morton pitched seven innings, allowing two runs on seven hits. The problem was, for the second straight game Pittsburgh's bats came up empty.

"(Jurrjens) was just dealing when I was there and I was just getting by," Morton said with a laugh.

Just as in Sunday's 2-0 loss to Detroit, a couple runs in the early going proved to be insurmountable.

In the second inning, Morton gave up two singles to put men on first and third with one out. Brooks Conrad then hit a deep sacrifice fly to right field, scoring Alex Gonzalez for a 1-0 Atlanta lead.

After a leadoff walk in the third inning, Martin Prado doubled to left field to give the Braves a 2-0 advantage. Prado's hit trickled slowly in to the left field corner and the speedy Jordan Schaffer circled all the way home.

Pittsburgh went 1-2-3 in three of the first four innings and put just three men in scoring position all game.  The Pirates biggest scoring threat came in the sixth, as Jose Tabata reached on an infield single and Garrett Jones walked to put men on first and second with no outs.

Jurrjens quickly got Neil Walker to pop out and Lyle Overbay grounded in to a double play to end the inning.

"I think out of (his) pitches, there were maybe one or two that didn't hit the mark where (catcher Brian) McCann set up," Atlanta manager Fredi Gonzalez said. "So when you have that kind of command with all your pitches, you're going to be successful."

The Pirates and Braves play again on Wednesday at 12:35 p.m.

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Chris Gates | Bucs Blog
Twitter.com/Chris_Gates
Chris.Gates@cbsradio.com