(Sports Network) – Pittsburgh Pirates starter Kevin Correia puts his solid road record to the test tonight in the third portion of a four-game series against the New York Mets at Citi Field.
Correia is 6-1 with a superb 2.35 earned run average in seven road assignments this season and continued his solid trend as the visitor in Friday’s 4-2 win over the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. Correia fired 7 1/3 shutout innings of four-hit ball to push his overall record to 7-4 in 12 games (11 starts) and lower his ERA to 3.44.
The right-hander has won two straight starts since a personal two-game slide and is 4-2 in his previous six decisions. He can become the majors’ first eight-game winner, but hasn’t had much success in his career against the Mets, going 1-3 with a 2.94 ERA in 10 games, four of which have been starts.
Pittsburgh improved to 3-2 on a seven-game road trip with Tuesday’s 5-1 victory behind a pair of runs batted in from Brandon Wood and Neil Walker. Josh Harrison went 2-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored for the Pirates, who got six innings of one-run ball from starter James McDonald in the no- decision. Evan Meek notched the win with a scoreless seventh inning.
The Pirates were 0-for-8 at Citi Field before last night’s win. Pittsburgh’s previous road win in this series was a 7-5 triumph on August 11, 2008 at Shea Stadium.
“We might have just been more stubborn than good tonight,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said. “Sometimes that works. I wouldn’t encourage that for an entire season, but we just kept taking our hacks.”
New York failed to build on Monday’s 7-3 win and wasted a solid start from knuckleballer R.A. Dickey, who lasted 7 2/3 innings and allowed three runs with 10 strikeouts.
“I definitely felt good with it,” Dickey said of his knuckleball. “I think definitely the warm weather helps. I continued to tell myself to stay the course, be consistent with that.”
Jason Bay drove in the lone run against his former team and both Angel Pagan and Daniel Murphy ended with two hits for the Mets, who have lost seven of 10 games and fell to 2-3 on a 10-game homestand.
The Mets will host Atlanta for three games after this set with Pittsburgh and are slated to hand Chris Capuano the ball Wednesday night. Capuano allowed two runs — one earned — in six innings of a 6-4 loss to Philadelphia on Friday for a no-decision and is 3-5 with a 4.94 ERA in 11 games (9 starts) in 2011.
Capuano, a left-hander, has lost four of his last five decisions and will face the Pirates for the 16th time in his career. Over the first 15 games (13 starts) in this series, Capuano is just 3-6 with a 6.46 ERA.
New York won six of seven meetings with the Pirates a year ago.