On April 28, the Pirates had a 9-0 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals that gave them a  series win and the NL Central lead. Jones had three hits and McDonald had an RBI double for Pittsburgh, that  ended rookie Shelby Miller’s streak of 14 scoreless innings at home.

The Pirates won a total of 9 of 12 overall, which put them in front of St. Louis and allowed them to fall into first place.

The Pirates next game was to be at Miller Park to face the Milwaukee Brewers, the only problem here is the Pirates ‘can’t win’ at Miller Park. Apparently they couldn’t beat any team on that field, they have been a team on the up-and-up over the past three seasons, all goes back down with Miller Park. This goes back to 2007 where they have gone 8-46 in the last 54 games played there.

With that bad luck riding on the Pirates, they ended up losing Tuesday night 12-8.

The Pirates started off the scoring in the first inning with Starling Marte doubling to left field, where Russell Martin followed with a single.  With that, runners were on first and third and Pittsburgh’s Andrew McCutchen singled to center to score the first run of the game.  That made it look like Brewers’ Marco Estrada could be in for a rough night.

The Brewers had a four-run lead going into the 5th, where their pitcher Estrada gave up back to back home runs to Martin and McCutchen; that brought the game within two points and forced the brewers to change pitchers in the 6th. by the end, the Brewers got their game back together and won by 4.

The Pirates are officially one game back of first to the St. Louis Cardinals and their record is 16-12.