Dodgers can’t overcome Edinson Volquez, fall to Pirates 5-3

Sometimes experiments can come back to haunt. You could ask Dr. Frankenstein about his monster, or maybe Donald Sterling about his Anderson Cooper interview.

The Dodgers did their share of experimenting last season, attempting to give pitchers discarded by others an opportunity to revive their careers. They had mixed success with Edinson Volquez, who appeared in six games for them (five starts) and ended his Dodgers career 0-2 with a 4.18 earned-run average.

That was improvement enough to interest the Pirates, who signed him in the off-season for one year at $5 million.

Volquez returned to Dodger Stadium on Sunday and, naturally, outpitched Zack Greinke to lead Pittsburgh to a 5-3 victory before a crowd of 51,020, who apparently were unaware a classic Game 7 was going on with the Kings.

Volquez went only five innings, but with Andrew McCutchen again acting like an MVP, that was enough.

McCutchen had two doubles, a home run, scored three times and made the defensive play of the game with a sliding catch of a Drew Butera drive in the seventh inning.

Greinke wasn’t terrible, but for the second consecutive game, he wasn’t overly sharp, either.

Greinke (8-2) gave up two runs in the first on a Pedro Alvarez single that eluded shortstop Hanley Ramirez, after the Pirates had loaded the bases on a McCutchen double off the wall and a pair of walks. McCutchen hit a solo homer in the third. Greinke went six innings, allowing five hits with two walks and seven strikeouts. He also hit a batter, former Dodger Russell Martin.

Volquez (3-4) was just a little better. In his five innings, he surrendered two runs and five hits, walked one and struck out six.

The Dodgers got a run in the second when Matt Kemp doubled and scored on a Justin Turner single. Turner hit a solo homer in the fourth, but the Dodgers never managed another hit until a late rally in the ninth. After a pair of two-out walks, pinch-hitter Scott Van Slyke singled in their final run. Dee Gordon lined out to short to end it.

The Dodgers have lost four of their last five.

It made for a quiet evening at Dodger Stadium. The biggest cheer of the night came when news of the Kings’ 5-4 overtime victory was shown on the scoreboard.