In his second start for the Pirates, SP Jeff Karstens took a perfect game into the seventh inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Unfortunately, after recording the first two outs in the inning, Chris Young doubled to end both the perfect game and no-hitter bids. The Pirates have never in their history had a pitcher throw a perfect game. Karstens ended up with a complete game shutout, giving up only two hits, striking out 4 and walking 1. Karstens also got his first and second hits in the major leagues and scored a run. In his two starts with the Pirates Karstens has thrown 15 shutout innings. The Buccos were obviously targeting Tabata in the deal with the Yankees, but they have to be happy with what they are getting from Karstens. Watching the game, however, I could not help but be worried at the number of long fly ball outs that Karstens recorded. In some stadiums a few of those would have been homeruns. However, as he said in the post-game interview, "sometimes it is better to be lucky than good."
As for the game, Randy Johnson was the opposing pitcher and threw almost as good a game as Karstens did. 2B Freddy Sanchez homered in the fourth for the first run of the game. In the eight, 1B Doug Mientkiewicz doubled in Karstens to finish off the scoring for the day. Karstens ended up 2-for-3, Mientkiewicz and Chris Gomez both went 2-for-4.
RF Steve Pearce continued to struggle. He struck out all four times that he came to the plate in this game and is now hitting .179. He is looking far from the solid player that we saw at the end of last season.
CF Nate McLouth and C Ryan Doumit were given the day off. Their replacements, Jason Michaels and Raul Chavez respectively, both went 0-for-4.
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