PITTSBURGH -- The Pirates pummeled
Not on Wednesday, though. Not with Musgrove on the mound.\n\n“So efficient and quick, and obviously we needed that type of performance,” third baseman
Musgrove credited the Pirates’ pitching coaches, his fellow starters and backup catcher
Musgrove relied on his four-seam fastball early in the game, using it up in the zone, then he kept Atlanta’s aggressive lineup off-balance with a heavy dose of breaking balls. Musgrove used his curveball 17 times on Wednesday after it accounted for only 5.6 percent of his pitches in prior starts this season, playing the breaking ball off his four-seamer.\n\nMusgrove retired 14 straight Braves hitters before issuing his first walk of the night in the eighth inning. As Richard Rodriguez began getting loose in the bullpen, Musgrove got Matt Joyce to ground into an inning-ending double play.\n\n“Any athlete will tell you, you hit that point of the game where you get in the zone and there’s not really any stopping you,” he said. “You’re not thinking about anything. You’re seeing the glove and throwing to it.”\n\nIf there were any doubts that Musgrove was going to try to finish what he started, they were erased when he stepped to the plate in the bottom of the eighth and knocked a single to center -- his second hit of the night. Musgrove returned to begin the ninth inning, but he quickly exited after surrendering back-to-back homers to
Hitting seems to be particularly contagious when