Burnett wins again as Pirates tame Tigers

Associated Press

pittsburgh

Brought over from the New York Yankees in the offseason, in part, to help transform a culture developed through 19 consecutive losing seasons, A.J. Burnett is doing plenty of winning for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Burnett pitched six shutout innings to win his seventh consecutive start and the Pirates won for the fifth time in six games, 4-1 over the Detroit Tigers on Friday night.

Burnett (8-2) allowed two hits and three walks and struck out four to extend his streak of starts that resulted in victories to the longest for a Pirates pitcher in 38 years. Doc Ellis won eight consecutive outings in 1974.

“He relied a lot on his experience, a lot on his catcher and a lot on making pitches,” Pittsburgh manager Clint Hurdle said of Burnett. “He got ahead in counts, they’d run it back to three balls then he’d find a way to get outs. He kept them from scoring, kept them from crossing the plate and you can’t ask for more than that.”

Burnett followed James McDonald’s complete-game victory Thursday, matching his career high by winning a seventh consecutive decision.

“It’s nice because it means the team is winning,” Burnett said, “but I wasn’t thinking about it. I just went out there and tried to take the baton from J-Mac and carry it on.”

Andrew McCutchen went 3-for-4 to improve his batting average to .346 and Rod Barajas added two hits for the Pirates (37-32), who matched a season high by going five games over .500.

Ramon Santiago had an RBI double for the Tigers, who had won four of five. Detroit missed a chance to move back to .500 for the first time since being 18-18 on May 15.

The crowd of 37,965 was Pittsburgh’s fifth sellout of the season. The city is beginning to warm to a team that has won 15 of its past 19 home games and began the day within two games of the first-place Cincinnati Reds in the NL Central.

Detroit managed a mere three baserunners against Burnett over the first five innings but the first two batters of the sixth reached when Austin Jackson singled and Quintin Berry walked.

Slugger Miguel Cabrera worked Burnett into a full count but grounded into a double play on the eighth pitch of the at-bat.

Burnett improved to 5-0 at home this season, allowing six earned runs in 48 2-3 innings at PNC Park (1.11 ERA).

He had losing records pitching for playoff teams in New York the past two seasons but is on pace to threaten the career-high 18 victories he had for Toronto in 2008, when Barajas was his catcher.

“It’s good to be able to work with him again,” Barajas said. “We had a great relationship in Toronto and he’s back to pitching the way he did there.”