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Fogg's gem gets Pirates first win of season

SAN DIEGO -- Josh Fogg put an end to the Pittsburgh
Pirates' early season woes.

Fogg allowed one run and four hits in 6 1/3 innings and Craig
Wilson had a clutch two-run single as the Pirates picked up
their first win of the season, a 3-2 victory over the San Diego
Padres .

Making his first career start in Petco Park, Fogg (1-0) coasted
until Ryan Klesko homered with one out in the seventh inning and
Ramon Hernandez followed with a double. Salomon Torres retired
the next batter and Mike Gonzalez recorded four outs.

"I had good command of my fastball," Fogg said. "If I got ahead
of guys, I was able to change speeds a take their legs away from
them a little bit."

"We just couldn't figure Fogg out," San Diego manager Bruce
Bochy said. "He was hitting spots and mixing it up. We didn't
hit many balls hard off of him. We weren't squaring up on the
ball at all."

Jose Mesa allowed a two-out RBIs double to Khalil Greene in the
ninth, but got pinch hitter Mark Sweeney to ground out to pick
up the save in his first outing of the season.

"You always want to get that first (win) out of the way," said
Pittsburgh manager Lloyd McClendon, who was ejected in the
eighth inning for arguing balls and strikes. "I'm sure guys in
the locker room can relax a little bit now and start playing the
type of baseball that they're capable of playing."

After the Pirates failed to score in 12 innings Thursday, Fogg
sparked the offense with a leadoff single in the third against
Padres starter Brian Lawrence (0-1).

Jack Wilson added a single two batters later and Tike Redman
walked to load the bases. After Jason Bay flied out to shallow
right-center field, Craig Wilson lined a shot to right field to
give Pittsburgh a 2-0 lead.

"It was one of those games," McClendon said. "We had
opportunities and so did they, but Craig came up with the big
hit. We scratched and clawed and got it done."

It was one of the few mistakes made by Lawrence, who surrendered
two runs and seven hits in seven innings while striking out
five.

"It was up and away, and just a bad pitch and it cost us the
game," Lawrence said.

The Padres' offense was kept in check for the second night in a
row after exploding for 24 runs in two games to open the season
in Colorado. San Diego needed a bases-loaded walk on Thursday
to score the only run in the game, and struggled again to score
at their pitcher-friendly home park.

"Our offense is going to take care of itself," Lawrence said.
"We're going to come around and hit the way we expect to. I'm
not going to read too much into it."

Pittsburgh took advantage of some shaky defense from San Diego
in the eighth to push across a key insurance run. Greene
misplayed a grounder by Rob Mackowiak, who scored two batters
later on an error by third baseman Sean Burroughs, making it
3-1.

In the bottom of the frame, the Pirates got a stellar defensive
play from third baseman Bobby Hill preserve the two-run edge.
With Brian Giles on second, Hill dove to stop a grounder off the
bat of Phil Nevin and threw to first in time to end the threat
and the inning.

"I caught it and the field was a little damp, so I had a chunk
of mud on my throwing hand," Hill said. "I just tried to get it
there as fast as I could and it turned out to be a pretty good
throw."

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