Walker homers as Pirates win series

Photo by: Jeff Roberson

AP

Photo

Pittsburgh Pirates' Andrew McCutchen is hit by a pitch during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals Wednesday, April 6, 2011, in St. Louis

Associated Press

ST. LOUIS

No more playing the patsy on the road for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Kevin Correia and two relievers combined to slow St. Louis, Neil Walker hit his second home run and the Pirates beat the Cardinals 3-1 Wednesday to wrap up an opening trip to remember.

The Pirates won their second road series of the season, now having taken two of three from St. Louis and the Chicago Cubs. Last year, Pittsburgh was a majors-worst 17-64 on the road on the way to a 57-105 record overall, and in 2009 they only won 22 games on the road.

So far this year, it’s a different story. A road to respectability, in fact.

“We’re not going to lower the bar based on other people’s opinions of who we are or what we are,” manager Clint Hurdle said. “We’ve got to get championship-level execution and we’ve got to have those standards.”

Ryan Doumit drove in his first run of the year and Lyle Overbay had two hits and an RBI for the Pirates, who won consecutive road series for the first time since Aug. 20-26, 2007, at Colorado and Houston.

“It’s definitely been starting pitching,” Walker said. “But it’s only six games. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves.”

Chris Carpenter (0-1) allowed one earned run in six innings but left trailing 2-0 and lost to the Pirates for only the second time in 13 career decisions.

Correia (2-0) allowed five hits in seven innings, Evan Meek bounced back from a pair of shaky outings with a perfect eighth against the top of the lineup and Joel Hanrahan allowed Yadier Molina’s two-out RBI double in the ninth before finishing for his fourth save in four chances.