G-20 limits witnesses to Pirates' latest loss
PITTSBURGH — President Barack Obama's motorcade passed in view of PNC Park in the eighth inning, and military helicopters buzzed over the ballpark all day. Obviously, something big was going on in Pittsburgh.
It wasn't the Reds-Pirates game, where a deserted ballpark matched the nearly deserted downtown only a bridge length away.
Bronson Arroyo limited Pittsburgh to one run over seven innings and the Cincinnati Reds completed their second sweep of the plummeting Pirates in less than a month, winning 4-1 Thursday to push the Pirates closer to a 100-loss season.
Joey Votto had a two-run double following Drew Sutton's RBI double and Brandon Phillips singled for his 95th RBI during a four-run third inning against Charlie Morton (4-9) as the Reds won their eighth in a row against the last-place Pirates. The Reds are 15 games ahead of the Pirates in the NL Central standings after falling behind them for one day following an Aug. 22 loss.
Since then, fourth-place Cincinnati is 21-10 — although it remains one loss away from a ninth consecutive losing season — and Pittsburgh is 5-25. Five losses by the Pirates in their final 11 games would give them 100.
At least for the Pirates' sake, there weren't many spectators. The paid attendance was 15,892, but the turnstile count was about 3,000 as two bad teams and the G-20 summit held down the turnout. The crowd was so small that the Pirates closed PNC Park's upper deck for the first time since the 38,362-seat ballpark opened in 2001 and allowed fans to sit in the lower level.
Crowd? The players didn't notice one.
"It didn't bother me. I still have to do what I do best, and that goes for the team as well," said Lastings Milledge, whose third homer provided the Pirates' only run. "We always want a lot of fans to show up, but at the same time we have a job to do and we take a lot of pride in what we do. I didn't think it really mattered. We still tried to pay hard for the win, regardless of whether there's one fan or 30,000 in here."
At least the two teams are used to this kind of apathy. They played before even fewer spectators — an estimated 1,000 — during the first game of a day-night doubleheader in Cincinnati on Aug. 31.
Parking lots near PNC Park were open, but the Pirates said frequent warnings all week about how difficult it would be to travel into Pittsburgh during the two-day summit clearly affected attendance. Almost no traffic was permitted downtown, where many offices and businesses are closed.
