PITTSBURGH: The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the St Louis Cardinals 5-3, putting the Pirates on the brink of reaching the second round of the Major League Baseball play-offs.
The Pirates, who are in the post-season for the first time in 21 years, seized a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five National League series.
“Unbelievable. We love it,” said Pittsburgh catcher Russell Martin. “We want to keep it going. We knew that we were going to be able to battle back and find a way to win.”
Game four is scheduled for today in Pittsburgh.
Martin belted an RBI single in the eighth after Carlos Beltran had tied the game for St Louis with his second home run of the series in the top half of the eighth.
“When we gave up that go-ahead run on that homer by Beltran it could have been a post-season killer but to come back and put up that run was huge for us,” said Pirates outfielder Marlon Byrd.
St Louis routed the upstart Pirates in game one, but Pittsburgh rebounded in a big way with a dominating 7-1 win in game two to even the series.Beltran’s solo homer off pitcher
In the other National League play-off contest yesterday, the Los Angeles Dodgers used a pair of four-run innings to clobber the Atlanta Braves and take a 2-1 series lead. Carl Crawford belted a three-run homer and scored three times, Juan Uribe clubbed two-run homer and scored twice, and Yasiel Puig collected three hits for the Dodgers, who bounced back from Friday’s 4-3 loss. AFP
