Same old story
MILWAUKEE — One bad month is not about to shake Andrew McCutchen’s confidence.
The All-Star outfielder busted out of his early-season slump with a home run and four hits Tuesday night, but it wasn’t enough for the Pittsburgh Pirates in their 12-8 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers.
“My confidence is always through the roof, regardless of the outcome,” said McCutchen, who raised his batting average 30 points to .247. “If you focus on the results, it’s going to be a long season. It’s the end of April. I know what I’m capable of doing. I’m not result-oriented. I don’t think about results, I think about the process.”
The Brewers won their ninth straight against Pittsburgh and improved to 46-7 at Miller Park vs. the Pirates since the start of 2007, the best home record by any team against a division opponent during that stretch.
McCutchen said the Pirates have to keep fighting against Milwaukee.
“Just keep playing. It’s all you can do,” he said. “We came back and had the lead and the opportunity to win the game. It shows we’re not going to give up. We’re going to continue to fight and we have the team to do that.”
Pittsburgh fought back from a 7-3 deficit to grab an 8-7 lead on Starling Marte’s three-run homer in the sixth inning. The hit initially was ruled a double, but umpires overturned the call after a video replay.
Jean Segura led off the bottom half with his third home run of the season.
After Tom Gorzelanny (1-0) escaped a two-on, none-out jam in the seventh, Yuniesky Betancourt lined his sixth home run of the year off Pirates reliever Bryan Morris (0-1), who was just called up from the minors.
Pittsburgh manager Clint Hurdle said his team made too many mistakes to win. The Pirates have given up 22 runs in the first two games of the series.
“They play well here. They swing the bats well here,” Hurdle said. “We’ve got to do a better job of commanding the zone, making good pitches and making them uncomfortable. For two nights straight, we haven’t done it.”
James McDonald started for Pittsburgh, allowing seven runs and eight hits in five innings.
“He didn’t get through them very clean,” Hurdle said. “The five innings, we needed them, but it was a bushel of three-ball counts. The curveball wasn’t in play. A very tough night. We were fortunate to be able to come back and get him some help.”
Rickie Weeks broke out of a season-long slump for Milwaukee with a three-run homer and five RBIs. He was so fed up with his struggles that he called Brewers hitting coach Johnny Narron for some early batting practice Tuesday.
The extra work sure paid off for Weeks, who finished with three hits after beginning the night with a .167 average. He said he was at Miller Park by 12:30 in the afternoon for the 7:10 p.m. game.
“I wanted to kill myself with work in the cage,” he said. “I was frustrated and I wanted to wear myself out and try to break out of it. I guess it worked.”
Milwaukee manager Ron Roenicke was thrilled with Weeks’ performance and hopes it will lead to big things.
“He had a really good day,” Roenicke said. “He’s had good at-bats recently, but hasn’t had the results. But today, everything worked.”
Weeks hit his second homer of the season in the eighth inning to seal it. Coming into the game, he had four RBIs all year and only seven hits in his last 72 at-bats.
Carlos Gomez went 2 for 3 with a double and two stolen bases for Milwaukee.
