MILWAUKEE — Nyjer Morgan’s game-ending sacrifice fly in the 10th inning lifted the Milwaukee Brewers to a 2-1 win over the struggling Pittsburgh Pirates and a series sweep.The Brewers have now won all eight games against the Pirates this season and 12 straight over the last two years at Miller Park.The last time the Pirates won at Miller Park was April 28, 2010. The Pirates have won just two of the team’s last 36 games in Milwaukee. We’ll send the latest Pittsburgh sports headlines to your phone or email every day — just sign up here.
With one out in the 10th inning, George Kottaras singled to left field and Casey McGehee followed with a double.Morgan then hit the first pitch from Chris Resop (3-4) to deep right field, and Kottaras scored easily for the win.Charlie Morton held Milwaukee scoreless over the first seven innings and allowed just three hits.

Reliever Joel Hanrahan came in with two outs in the eighth inning and struck Morgan out swinging for what should have been the third out. But the ball bounced away from catcher Michael McKenry, allowing Morgan to reach first base while Jerry Hairston Jr. moved from second to third. Hanrahan was charged with a wild pitch.”It was a great pitch and, unfortunately, as good as our catcher has been at blocking balls, it was probably wasn’t the textbook way to go at that one,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said. “We had the right guy in, the situation presented itself, we moved on it, and it didn’t work out.”The next batter, Ryan Braun, singled to center field and drove Hairston home to tie the score at 1-1. It was just the second blown save for Hanrahan in 32 chances this year.Garrett Jones scored Pittsburgh’s only run of the day in the first inning, when Andrew McCutchen hit a double to deep left field off Milwaukee starter Shaun Marcum.Takashi Saito (3-1) pitched a scoreless 10th inning and got the win for the Brewers.

Copyright 2011 by WTAE. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The Pittsburgh Pirates placed first baseman Derrek Lee on the
15-day disabled list before their game with the Milwaukee Brewers
on Saturday.

Lee broke a bone in his left wrist when he was hit by Chicago’s
Carlos Marmol on Aug. 3. The move is retroactive to Aug. 10.

Lee, who was acquired from Baltimore on July 30, missed four
games, but returned Monday and played two games in San Francisco.
He was batting .278 with two home runs and three RBIs in five games
since the trade.

Infielder Josh Harrison was recalled from Triple-A Indianapolis.
It is his third stint with the Pirates in 2011. He has gone
25-for-95 (.263) with five RBIs and 12 runs scored in 30 games.

MILWAUKEE — Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder hit back-to-back homers and Zack Greinke remained perfect at Miller Park to lift the NL Central-leading Milwaukee Brewers to a 7-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates on Friday night.

Braun and Fielder homered in the eighth after the Pirates had chased Greinke (11-4) with two runs earlier in the inning. Milwaukee won its 10th straight at Miller Park against Pittsburgh and is a major league best 42-15 at home this year.

The 2009 AL Cy Young winner struck out nine and retired 11 straight at one point as Milwaukee maintained its four-game lead over St. Louis in the division race.

Milwaukee built a 4-0 lead off Paul Maholm (6-13) before the Pirates rallied, only to have Braun and Fielder answer right back.

The Pirates are 11 games back in the NL Central and continue their skid out of contention with their 14th loss in 17 games. Pittsburgh finally figured out Greinke with run-scoring doubles by Michael McKenry and Andrew McCutchen in the eighth.

But Braun, who also hit a sacrifice fly in the fifth, led off the bottom of the inning with a homer and Fielder hit another fastball from Joe Beimel to right field for his 28th home run the season.

Jonathan Lucroy added a two-out RBI single off Jose Veras and reliever Francisco Rodriguez followed with his first career hit in his second at-bat on an infield single that caused the Brewers bullpen to celebrate wildly.

It may cost Milwaukee.

Rodriguez warmed up for the ninth, but left after talking to trainer Roger Caplinger. The Brewers said Rodriguez exited with a right leg cramp, but he was stretching his left leg after he awkwardly stepped on the bag to beat Garrett Jones to first for his hit.

Greinke is 8-0 with a 3.36 ERA in 10 starts in Milwaukee this year. He allowed a first-inning single to Xavier Paul before retiring 11 straight — including five consecutive strikeouts to finish two short of the franchise record set by Steve Woodard in 1999.

After allowing three hits in the first seven innings, Greinke began to tire in the eighth and left with two outs after McCutchen’s double. Rodriguez got the final out before Braun and Fielder’s fireworks and then was later forced to hit.

Milwaukee is now 14-2 in a stretch of 16 straight games against NL Central opponents after the Pirates and Cardinals led the division just over two weeks ago.

Josh Wilson singled in Milwaukee’s first run in the second. The veteran infielder is one of three Brewers filling in for the injured Rickie Weeks. Weeks is expected to miss two to four more weeks with a badly sprained left ankle, even though the Brewers are 12-2 without the All-Star second baseman in the lineup.

Casey McGehee tripled in two more in the third before Braun’s sacrifice gave Milwaukee a 4-0 lead and put the Brewers on their way to their 34th home win in the last 37 games against the Pirates.

Notes: Maholm lost his fourth straight. … The Pirates activated RHP Ross Ohlendorf from the 60-day disabled list and immediately optioned him to Triple-A Indianapolis. Ohlendorf has been out since April with a strained shoulder. … Brewers RHP Marco Estrada (2-8, 4.80 ERA) faces RHP Kevin Correia (12-10, 4.78) in Saturday’s game. Estrada is starting after LHP Chris Narveson was placed on the 15-day DL after cutting his thumb and needing eight stitches. … Narveson said he hopes he can resume throwing in the next few days and return as soon as he can on Aug. 22.

(Sports Network) – The Pittsburgh Pirates can begin one last improbable charge
toward the top of the National League’s Central Division tonight at Miller
Park, as they open a three-game series with the front-running Milwaukee
Brewers.

The Pirates were among the league’s biggest success stories for the season’s
first half, getting a share of the division for a brief spell and staying in
contention until a 10-game losing streak in late July and early August.

The dip pushed them below .500 for the season and to the fringes of contention
in the division, where they now trail the Brewers by 10 games after winning
two of three in San Francisco earlier in the week.

Milwaukee stretched its lead to four games over second-place St. Louis by
taking two of three in a series that ended Thursday, when Chris Carpenter
pitched eight strong innings and Albert Pujols went 4-for-4 with a homer and
two RBI as the Cardinals won, 5-2, to avoid a sweep.

Mark Kotsay and Prince Fielder both had RBI hits for the Brewers, who lost for
just the second time in their last 15 games. They grounded into four double
plays.

Yovani Gallardo (13-8) was saddled with the loss after allowing seven hits and
five runs — four earned — over five frames.

On Wednesday in San Francisco, Matt Diaz finished 2-for-4 with two RBI as
Pittsburgh plundered San Francisco, 9-2.

Ryan Ludwick added three hits, an RBI and two runs scored, while Andrew
McCutchen hit a two-run homer, walked three times and crossed the plate on
four occasions for the Pirates.

Jeff Karstens (9-6) worked six innings, allowing eight hits and two runs while
fanning nine for the win.

Milwaukee sends right-hander Zack Greinke to the mound, where he’ll face the
Pirates for the third time in his career.

The 27-year-old Floridian has won each of the first two meetings while
allowing a combined seven runs on 13 hits in 11 1/3 innings.

Lately, Greinke has won three straight outings, defeating the Chicago Cubs,
St. Louis and Houston while allowing 14 hits and three runs in 19 2/3 innings.

He’s been perfect at home in his first season with the Brewers, winning all
seven decisions in nine starts while posting a 3.49 earned run average.

Paul Maholm goes for the Pirates in search of his first win since July 10.

The Mississippi native was 6-9 on the season after a 9-1 defeat of the Cubs
that night, but has since dropped three decisions in five starts as his ERA
has ballooned from 2.96 to 3.54.

Maholm, a lefty, gave up 10 hits and seven runs in 6 2/3 innings of his last
outing, a 13-2 loss to San Diego on Aug. 6.

Maholm is 3-7 in 18 career starts against Milwaukee.

Milwaukee has won all five meetings with Pittsburgh this season and is 18-5 in
this series since the start of the 2010 campaign.

The Sports Network

All the good memories of an overachieving Pittsburgh Pirates team are quickly being erased by an awful second-half stretch.

Kyle Blanks hit a grand slam and drove in five runs as the San Diego Padres sent Pittsburgh to its ninth straight loss, 13-2 on Saturday.

Last in the National League in runs and homers, San Diego set a club record for runs in consecutive games with 28, team said in citing the Elias Sports Bureau. The Padres hit a grand slam in consecutive games for the first time in 20 years.

“We talk about contagious, and you see that happening a little bit the last couple of nights,” San Diego manager Bud Black said. “There’s a feeling amongst the lineup that they are going to give a good at bat and the result is going to be there.”

There was an opposite feeling in the other dugout. The Pirates were in first place on July 26, but have dropped 11 of 12 while plummeting out of the NL Central lead. Pittsburgh fell nine games behind division-leading Milwaukee, prompting a players-only team meeting after the game.

“We’ve got to get back to the attitude we had at the beginning of the season,” outfielder Garrett Jones said. “Get our mindset back to where it was. Get that swagger —that was the word we were using — and that attitude of ‘We’re gonna win every game.’”

Elsewhere in the National League it was: Chicago Cubs 11, Cincinnati 4; Philadelphia 2, San Francisco 1; Milwaukee 7, Houston 5; New York Mets 11, Atlanta 7; St. Louis 2, Florida 1; Los Angeles Dodgers 5, Arizona 3; Colorado 15, Washington 7.

At Pittsburgh, fans at PNC Park booed as the game got out of hand, leaving the Pirates at 0-6 on their homestand. Blanks’ slam off Chris Resop in the seventh inning made it 11-1.

Saddled with a major North American professional sports record 18 consecutive losing years, the Pirates were as many as seven games over .500 in July. But the team’s sudden slump has been just as stunning as its ascension to respectability after losing 105 games in 2010.

“Losing nine is no fun for anybody. But nobody’s holding a pity party for us,” losing pitcher Paul Maholm said. “I’m sure there’s a lot of people that are having fun with the fact we’re losing, but we’re just going to get over it and come back tomorrow and expect to win.”

San Diego has pounded Pirates pitching for five home runs in winning the first two games of the series and have won three in a row overall.

The Padres had not hit a grand slam this season until Chase Headley did it Friday night. After hitting his first homer the day before, Blanks’ shot Saturday marked the first time San Diego had hit slams on consecutive days since Aug. 13-14, 1991, when Fred McGriff had both. Cleveland was the most recent team to do it, Sept. 17-18 of last season.

“I feel like the last couple of days before we came on the road I was making some strides in the cage, figuring out some things and applying them in the game,” Blanks said. “Now the results do start to matter, and I feel good. I had a couple of good nights in a row, and I just want to continue.”

Rookie Cory Luebke (4-6) struck out a career-high nine and allowed one run over seven innings. He also had two hits and scored a run to help the Padres win their eighth straight game in Pittsburgh.

Orlando Hudson had three hits and scored the game’s first run on Blanks’ triple in the second. Rob Johnson had three RBIs for San Diego, which had scored a total of 28 runs over its eight previous games before this series.

Luebke came in having lost his previous three starts. He allowed five hits and no walks.

“We got ahead tonight,” Luebke said, “and with me and (Johnson) on the same page all night, when you get that kind of flow with your catcher, it just makes things easier for everybody.”

Maholm (6-12) gave up a season-high seven earned runs and tied a season high for hits allowed with 10. Pittsburgh has lost each of his five starts since the all-star break.

Jones had a solo home run for the Pirates in the eighth, his 13th and third of the homestand.

Philadelphia 2, San Francisco 1

At San Francisco, Cole Hamels pitched a seven-hitter for his first win in two weeks and the Philadelphia Phillies made a pair of first-inning runs hold up, extending their season-high winning streak to nine games.

Brewers 7, Astros 5

At Houston, Prince Fielder hit a three-run homer in the first inning and later doubled and singled as the Milwaukee Brewers won for the 10th time in 11 games by beating the Astros.

At Miami, Albert Pujols hit a two-run homer in the first inning, then Chris Carpenter and the St. Louis bullpen made it stand up in a win over the Florida Marlins.

At Chicago, Carlos Zambrano hit his 23rd career home run and pitched six solid innings, and the Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds for their seventh straight win.

At Phoenix, Nathan Eovaldi pitched five solid innings in his major league debut and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Arizona Diamondbacks.

At Denver, Ty Wigginton and Chris Iannetta each homered in a five-run fourth inning, Jhoulys Chacin won for the first time in seven weeks and a Colorado team shaken by the loss of rookie pitcher Juan Nicasio to a neck injury beat the Washington Nationals.

At New York, Justin Turner homered twice and the Mets stopped a five-game losing streak with a victory over the Atlanta Braves.

PITTSBURGH (AP) – Lance Berkman and Yadier Molina homered during St. Louis’ five-run fifth inning, Jaime Garcia won his 10th game
and the Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates for the second
consecutive night, 9-1 on Saturday night.

A day after hitting three homers in a 15-hit barrage, St. Louis
won its third straight by collecting 12 hits in assuring itself a
win in what many in Pittsburgh were calling the biggest series in
PNC Park’s 11-year history.

Surprising Pittsburgh – without a winning season since 1992 but
in first place for four of the seven days leading up to this series
- lost its third consecutive game. The Pirates dropped into third
place behind the Milwaukee Brewers and Cardinals in the National
League Central.