Bucs done in by own miscues

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

Pittsburgh manager Clint Hurdle knows the margin for error for his surprising club is small. Really small.

Too small, it turns out, to survive a pair of defensive miscues when facing maybe the hottest pitcher in the game.

The Cincinnati Reds took advantage of two errors by Pittsburgh shortstop Chase d’Arnaud to pull out a 3-1 win on Wednesday and avoid a three-game sweep.

A wild throw by d’Arnaud to start the game led to the Reds ending an 18-inning scoreless drought while another in the fifth let Cincinnati get some breathing room as the Pirates fell to the defending NL Central champions for just the second time in nine games this year.

“They were two plays we need to put away,” Hurdle said. “That basically was pretty much the difference.”

That and another stellar outing by Cincinnati’s Johnny Cueto, who outdueled Pittsburgh’s Jeff Karstens in a matchup of two of the stingiest itchers in the NL.

Cueto (6-3) gave up one run on four hits in six-plus innings to shave his ERA to 1.98, good enough to edge out Karstens (8-5), who put together another typically efficient outing but was undone by a pair of unearned runs set up by d’Arnaud’s misplays.

Though Karstens fell to 1-5 in day games he refused to see the loss as a missed opportunity. Pittsburgh took two of three from the Reds despite managing just four runs in the series.

“Look on the bright side, we won the series and we take [today] off and we come back on Friday,” said Karstens, who needed just 77 pitches to get through seven innings.

Chris Heisey and Jay Bruce had two hits apiece for the Reds. Heisey led off the game with a routine grounder that d’Arnaud threw into the stands. Heisey would score on a sacrifice fly from Joey Votto.

Miguel Cairo’s sacrifice fly in the second put Cincinnati up 2-0 and, after Andrew McCutchen’s double cut the lead to one, another d’Arnaud mistake gave the Reds some breathing room in the fifth. He had trouble coming up with a two-out grounder by Cueto, extending the inning. Heisey followed with a single and the pitcher came home on a single by Edgar Renteria.