Bucs shut out by LA, waste a strong outing by Maholm

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

Another stellar start by Paul Maholm was undone by another subpar offensive performance by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Yet ask the hard-luck left-hander if he feels snakebit after six solid innings of work ended up with him taking a 2-0 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday and he shakes his head.

“My job is to get outs, to get deeper in the game,” Maholm said. “In the sixth I didn’t do the job.”

Barely.

The Dodgers didn’t overpower Maholm but did just enough to put together their first winning streak in three weeks.

Los Angeles loaded the bases with no outs in the sixth and a double play followed by an RBI double by Jerry Sands was enough to leave Maholm (1-5) winless in his career against Dodgers.

The game followed an all-too familiar theme for Maholm. The Pirates have scored just 11 runs in his eight starts and never really came close to crossing the plate against Los Angeles pitcher Hiroki Kuroda.

Kuroda (4-3) allowed just three hits over seven innings, striking out eight and walking three as the Dodgers won back-to-back games for the first time in three weeks.

Matt Guerrier worked a perfect eighth and Vicente Padilla surrendered a two-out double in the ninth but struck out Brandon Wood to end the four-hitter for his third save.

Pittsburgh came in batting just .236 on the season and looked overmatched at times against Kuroda. The 36-year-old relies more on moxie than might these days but showed plenty against the lifeless Pirates.

“He can do pretty much what he wants with the baseball, if he’s going,” manager Don Mattingly said. “And that allows him to stay in ballgames.”

Kuroda gave Mattingly little reason to take him out, holding Pittsburgh hitless for more than four innings then deftly getting his way out of a minor jam late.

“He had a real good fastball tonight, and then he mixed in a slider,” catcher Rod Barajas said. “Once we knew that was working, we threw a lot of them. And when he has those going for him, he’s going to win a lot of ballgames.”