Tuesday, September 21, 1999
PIRATES 11, ASTROS 5
This time, Pirates
do Reds a favor
The Associated Press
PITTSBURGH — Brant Brown hit a three-run homer and drove in four runs and the Pittsburgh Pirates stayed tough against contending teams, beating the Houston Astros 11-5 Monday night.
Brown's three-run shot off Shane Reynolds (16-12) came in a rain-interrupted six-run third inning that saw the Pirates turn a 4-2 deficit into an 8-4 lead.
Brian Giles had three hits and two RBIs, giving him five RBIs in two games and 114 for the season as the Pirates won their fourth in five games, all against contenders.
The Pirates, who are a game under .500 and still have a shot for their first winning season since 1992, won two of three over the weekend from Cincinnati. The Reds began the night 31/2 games behind Houston in the NL Central race.
Houston has kept the race close by losing four of five since winning a club-record 12 in a row. The Astros are 4-6 against Pittsburgh, losing six of the last seven, and are 0-4 in Three Rivers Stadium this season.
Pete Schourek (4-7), like Brown an offseason Pittsburgh pickup experiencing a rough season, replaced Francisco Cordova after the rain delay and pitched 3 2-3 innings of one-run relief for the victory. It was his first win since July 24 against Montreal.
Cordova is 5-2 against Houston and Reynolds is 9-4 against Pittsburgh — 0-3 this season — but neither starter made it past the third.
Jeff Bagwell drove in three runs with a pair of singles in the first two innings but Giles and Brown each had RBI singles in the Pirates' first.
Giles, who homered twice Sunday against Cincinnati, started the third with a double. Kevin Young then walked ahead of Brown's career-high 15th homer and his fourth in 13 games, an opposite-field drive to left-center. Brown began the season as the Pirates' starting center fielder, but failed to hit and lost the job within a month.
Two batters later, Keith Osik's hard-hit grounder went under second baseman Craig Biggio's glove and rolled nearly to the right-field wall for an unusual three-base error by a middle infielder. The error scored Abraham Nunez, who had singled.
Mike Benjamin then singled in another run just before a rain delay of one hour, 42 minutes. After played resumed, Trever Miller replaced Reynolds and gave up Giles' single, his second hit of the inning.
The Pirates didn't score again until Young's two-run single in a three-run eighth off Jay Powell.
Notes: Pittsburgh won the final game of a three-game series against NL West-leading Arizona on Wednesday before beginning its final homestand of the season against the Reds and Astros. ... The Pirates are 44-35 in Three Rivers, their best home record since they were 53-28 in 1992. ... The Pirates had not won a game started by Cordova since Aug. 18, a span of seven starts. ... Bagwell is batting .336 with 78 RBIs on the road. He needs two homers to tie Mark McGwire's single-season record of 32 road homers. Bagwell has homered this season in every NL stadium but Pittsburgh and Montreal. ... Reynolds was 9-1 against Pittsburgh before this season. ... The paid attendance was 10,256, but only about 1,000 stayed after the rain delay.
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