Pirates homers shell Giants

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

Andrew McCutchen hit his 19th homer and Pedro Alvarez made up for some shaky defense by adding his 20th of the season as the Pittsburgh Pirates held off the San Francisco Giants 5-2 on Sunday night.

Francisco Liriano (9-6) gave up two unearned runs and struck out five in 51/3 eventful innings to win his fifth straight decision. The Pirates are 10-0 in Liriano’s last 10 starts dating back to June 26.

Alvarez committed a pair of errors that led directly to both San Francisco runs but atoned with a solo shot in the seventh that gave Pittsburgh some breathing room. Mark Melancon worked a perfect ninth for his major league-leading 39th save.

Matt Duffy had three hits for the Giants. Ryan Vogelsong (9-9) failed to make it out of the fourth inning as San Francisco finished 2-5 on a seven-game road trip.

The Pirates remain within 31/2 games of St. Louis in the hotly contested NL Central after beating the Giants for the sixth time in seven tries. While Pittsburgh was hardly crisp — committing three errors and allowing the Giants to hang around by leaving 10 men on base — it still didn’t matter.

Vogelsong spent six largely forgettable seasons with the Pirates from 2001-06 and PNC Park continues to give him trouble.

He came in 6-13 with a 6.06 ERA at his old home, numbers that didn’t improve during another rocky outing.

Struggling with the command didn’t help.

The Pirates touched Vogelsong for three runs in the first thanks to a bases-loaded walk to Jung Ho Kang, an RBI-single by Neil Walker and a sacrifice fly by Pedro Alvarez.