Pirates Win Pitching Duel Against Giants

Mike Dunne said his strong comeback pitching performance was no big deal.

“The game’s not that tough,” Dunne, a Pittsburgh Pirate right-hander, insisted.

Pitching certainly looked easy in Thursday’s game, which the Pirates, who totaled four hits, won, 2-1, with a pair of bloop singles off San Francisco relievers in the 10th inning. The Giants finished with five hits, all singles.

The Giants’ Kelly Downs was perfect through five innings for the second time this season, and yielded just two hits and a run in eight innings.

“The bottom line is we lost, and I don’t feel good about that. But I’ve got confidence working for me. I’ll remember the things I did well and take them into my next start,” Downs said.

Dunne was the Pirates’ winning pitcher on opening day but strained a side muscle then and went on the disabled list the next day. He was activated for Thursday’s game and allowed only four hits in six innings.

“I was ready,” he said. “I felt as good as ever.”

Manager Jim Leyland said Dunne, who was 13-6 last season, looked as good ever, too.

“It was tough to pull him from the game. He was up to about 85 pitches, but we had no limit for him. But it was such a close game, and every pitch meant something,” Leyland said.

Rather than have Dunne continue bearing down, Leyland finished up with Jeff Robinson and Jim Gott, the former Giant pitchers who have become one of baseball’s best bullpen combinations.

The Pirates lead the National League East with a 15-5 record, and Leyland says, “The key is the job that Gott and Robinson have done, and I’m not saying that just because we’re in San Francisco. In most games last year, it was up in the air whether our relievers were going to save a game.”

Robinson (2-0) got Thursday’s victory with 3 2/3 innings of one-hit relief, and Gott notched his third save--the second in three days--by striking out Kevin Mitchell on three pitches to end the game.

The Giants scored in the first on Brett Butler’s walk and stolen base and an RBI single by Will Clark. Pittsburgh tied it in the eighth when Darnell Coles doubled, went to third on a sacrifice and scored on R.J. Reynolds’ pinch-hit sacrifice fly.

Craig Lefferts (1-1) was the losing pitcher, being charged with his first run of the season in the 10th. Bobby Bonilla opened the winning rally with a bloop single to center and went to second on Sid Bream’s sacrifice. Coles got Bonilla home with a blooper to right.

The Giants, defending Western Division champions, lost for the fifth time in six games and dropped to 10-11. In four of the last five losses, they have had five hits or less.

Manager Roger Craig said he doesn’t plan any major shakeups in the lineup.

“I don’t want the players to think I’ve started to panic,” he said. “There’s nothing to do but to come out every day and bust our butts.”