PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Pirates probably won't lose 100 games, and it's partly because Jimmy Anderson probably won't lose 20.

        Anderson snapped a seven-game losing streak with his first complete game this season, and Aramis Ramirez hit a two-run homer as the Pirates beat the Reds 5-2 Saturday night for their fifth win in six games.

        Anderson (7-16) pitched a nine-hitter for his first complete game since Sept. 4, 2000, against the Los Angeles Dodgers. He hadn't won in eight starts since beating St. Louis on July 22.

        “I think the difference is he visited the dark side and he survived,” Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon said. “He's seen the worst of it and got through it unscathed. I said a couple of starts ago that the only person who could get him out of this was Jimmy Anderson, and he's done that.”

        The left-hander has allowed three runs in his last two starts after giving up nine in his previous start. He limited Milwaukee to a run in seven innings Monday but did not get a decision in a 3-2 Pirates victory.

        “That felt good because it had been such a long time since the team had won with me out there,” Anderson said. “I was trying to make so many changes, it was cramping my brain. I went back to trying to be myself, just throw strikes and get them to hit groundballs.”

        Before that start Monday, Anderson was in danger of becoming baseball's first 20-game loser since Brian Kingman of Oakland in 1980. The Pirates also were threatening to lose 100 games for the first time since 1985, but now must lose 13 of their final 20 to do that.

        “I didn't think about that (losing 20), but what was bothering me was I wasn't helping my teammates,” Anderson said. “I wasn't keeping them in games.”

        Cincinnati's Sean Casey said Anderson didn't look like a pitcher who is nine games under .500.

        “He's got late movement on the ball, it comes in and it looks good. Then you go to swing and it moves, so you hit it into the ground or hit a weak fly ball,” Casey said.

        Ramirez's two-run shot off Elmer Dessens (9-12) in the sixth followed Brian Giles' leadoff single and gave him 101 RBIs in his first full major league season. Ramirez is the 11th player in team history to hit 30 homers and drive in 100 runs in a season.

        Ramirez has played on and off for the Pirates since being called up in 1998 at age 19, but this is his first full season.

        The Reds lost for the fourth time in five games and eighth in 12 despite taking a 2-0 lead on Dessens' RBI single in the second and Jason LaRue's grounder in the fourth.

        The Pirates, who had gone four games without a home run, tied it in the fifth on Kevin Young's two-run shot, his 13th, into the first row of the left-field bleachers. Rob Mackowiak started the inning with a single.

        “He (Dessens) was really strong at the start of game, but he got some balls over the middle of the plate,” Reds manager Bob Boone said. “Our club has given up a lot of homers, and it seems like they're all fastballs up and over the middle.”

        The Reds have given up 181 home runs, fourth-most in the NL.

        Pittsburgh added another run in a three-run sixth on reliever Jose Rijo's balk.

        The Pirates can win consecutive series for the first time this season by beating the Reds on Sunday. They have won two of three from Cincinnati after taking three of four from Milwaukee.

        Pirates: Notes: The sellout crowd of 38,638 was lured in part by a Roberto Clemente bobblehead doll giveaway. The Pirates were anticipating the largest crowd of the season, but it did not top the 39,388 against San Diego on Aug. 11. ... Pirates starters are 4-0 in the last six games. ... Giles was 2-for-3 against Dessens and is 12-of-18 (.667) against him lifetime. ... Warren Morris thought he homered in the Pirates' fifth, but was held at second by fan interference. A spectator leaned several feet over a guardrail to catch the ball before it could hit the wall. ... Pirates 2B Abraham Nunez strained his right hamstring running the bases in the third inning and could be out for a while.

Pirates 5, Reds 2 Hamilton likely to join rotation Boone back in full swing Fans-eye view of the Reds Pirates starter ends 7-game slide Reds box, runs

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