Pitching woes, lack of hitting continue for Pirates in 9-1 loss to Arizona

Starting pitcher Charlie Morton made his season debut Friday night and Morton who is regarded as having the best stuff of the entire staff, struck out five of his first six batters to pitch two scoreless innings to open up the game.

Morton showed great movement on his fastball and change up but everything turned for the worst in the 3rd inning for Morton and the Pirates.

With the bases loaded in the third, former Pittsburgh Pirate Adam LaRoche broke out of an 0-for-13 slump with a two-run single in the third, as the Diamondbacks jumped out to an 2-0 lead.

Morton got a bit rattled and hit Mark Reynolds with a pitch that reloaded the bases for Arizona.

Two batters later, Chris Young hit a grand slam off of a 2-1 pitch to deep center and break the game wide open as Arizona led 6-0 in the third inning.

Morton allowed eight runs and nine hits in 3 1/3 innings. He threw 50 strikes on 88 pitches and had 6 strikeouts and 1 walk.

The Diamondbacks would add two more runs in the 4th inning and both runs were charged to Morton.

For the second straight game the Pirates bats came up empty. The Pirates managed just 8 hits, scoring their only run on a Jeff Clement single to center that scored Lastings Milledge.

The Diamondbacks would add their 9th run in the bottom of the 7th, off of a Chris Young single to center. Reliever Evan Meek was charged with the earned run.

Pirates reliever D.J. Carrasco pitched a scoreless 5th and 6th innings, while Hayden Penn pitched a scoreless 8th inning for the Pirates.

Leadoff hitter Aki Iwamura went 2-for-4, and Garrett Jones went 2-for-3, the only Pirates with multi-hits in the game. Andrew McCutchen was 0-for-4 and was hitless for the second straight game.

Delwyn Young added a pinch hit single in the 7th inning and is batting .600 on the season.

The Diamondbacks improved to 3-1 on the season.

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