Marlins close road trip with finale of four-game set in Pittsburgh

Baseball Betting Lines

08/19/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Florida Marlins will close out what's been an up-and- down 10-game road trip tonight with the last of four straight meetings with the downtrodden Pittsburgh Pirates from PNC Park.

Florida began its three-city tour in fine fashion, sweeping a three-game set from fellow National League East member Washington from August 10-12. The club then proceeded to lose three consecutive matchups with NL Central-leading Cincinnati, as well as Monday's opener of this set, but have since rebounded with back-to-back wins over the last-place Pirates.

After Ricky Nolasco and two relievers combined on a six-hit shutout in Tuesday's 6-0 triumph, the Marlins used eight strong innings from ace Josh Johnson to edge Pittsburgh by a 3-2 count last night.

Johnson (11-5) bounced back from his worst performance of the season, a 3 2/3- inning stint against the Reds last Friday in which he was tagged for six runs and 10 hits, to hold the Pirates' anemic offense to two runs while striking out six without issuing a walk. Leo Nunez then came on in the ninth to preserve the one-run lead and pick up his 27th save.

"He had fastball command and was using both sides of the plate," Florida manager Edwin Rodriguez said of Johnson. "He's got a powerful fastball. That set up the tempo and made his breaking ball better."

Dan Uggla was the offensive star for Florida, going 2-for-3 with a solo home run to extend his hitting streak to 10 games. The power-hitting second baseman is batting a torrid .486 (18-for-37) with four homers and 11 RBI over that stretch.

Ryan Doumit and Andrew McCutchen each had solo homers off Johnson, with McCutchen's eighth-inning blast bringing the Pirates within a run, but that wasn't enough to prevent starting pitcher Ross Ohlendorf from suffering another frustrating defeat.

Ohlendorf fell to 1-10 on the season despite giving up just the three runs and four hits in eight innings of work. The hard-luck right-hander has received the lowest run support of any starting hurler in the majors this year.

"It's very encouraging and I'm just trying to take the positives out of each outing," commented Ohlendorf after the game. "I feel like I'm pitching well, so each time I go out, I'm trying to get a win on that night. I wish my record was better at this point. I have to worry about going forward and picking up wins for the rest of the year."

Pittsburgh has now dropped nine of its last 10 games and fell to a woeful 40-80 on the season. The team will turn to Paul Maholm tonight in hopes of reversing his recent fortunes, although the left-hander has endured his own struggles as of late.

Maholm is 1-4 with an awful 8.44 earned run average over his past five starts and has surrendered four runs or more four times during that span. The former first-round draft choice actually had his best outing in quite some time last Saturday in Houston, allowing three runs and pitching into the seventh inning, but that effort still resulted in a loss.

Prior to that start, Maholm was blitzed for eight runs (six earned) on seven hits in just 2 2/3 innings in an August 8 setback to Colorado at PNC Park, raising his home ERA to 5.64 on the season.

The 28-year-old owns a 3-3 record with a 4.66 ERA in six lifetime encounters with Florida and beat the Marlins in his only start against them last season.

Rodriguez will hand the ball tonight to Alex Sanabia, with the young pitcher to be called up from Triple-A New Orleans to take the rotation spot of the injured Sean West. Sanabia had made four starts and three relief appearances with the Marlins earlier this summer, but was sent back to the minors after being rocked for seven runs and nine hits in just two innings of a July 28 loss at San Francisco.

The rookie right-hander did put together two excellent starts for New Orleans following the demotion, including an August 11 win at Salt Lake in which he permitted just one run and five hits through eight innings.

West was scratched from this scheduled start and placed on the disabled list on Wednesday due to inflammation in his right knee.

Florida halted a string of five straight losses at PNC Park with its two wins in this series, but the Pirates have still taken six of the past 10 overall bouts between the teams.