An electrical outage and a 25-minute delay couldn’t stop Jose Bautista.
He homered twice and drove in four runs to help Pittsburgh beat Washington 11-4, ending the Nationals’ season-high four-game winning streak. “He’s been working awfully hard with the hitting coach (Don Long) to correct a couple of things we thought would make him better, and he’s really stayed with it,” Pirates manager John Russell said of Bautista. “He’s gotten much better every game.”
Bautista said Long’s tweaks to his stance didn’t give him more power, but provided a better foundation for success at the plate.
“With me, I think it’s getting into a good hitting position on time and being able to hit the ball,” he said. “A lot of times, I get into a good position, but then I miss my pitch. I’ve just got to make sure I can capitalize on them when I get them.”
Ryan Doumit and Chris Gomez had two RBIs apiece for the Pirates.
The game was delayed in the bottom of the fourth when rows of lights along the left and right-field lines went dark. Umpires huddled with Nationals Park operations staff before the teams retreated to their dugouts to wait out the power failure.
Damaso Marte (2-0) pitched two hitless innings, and the Pirates bullpen gave up one hit in five innings.
Elsewhere in the NL it was: Atlanta 2, Cincinnati 0; Florida 6, San Diego 4; Houston 7, Milwaukee 4; Philadelphia 6, San Francisco 5; St. Louis 5, Chicago 3; New York 7, Arizona 2; and Los Angeles 11, Colorado 6.
At Washington, the Pirates took a 6-0 lead in the third, sending nine men to the plate and breaking John Lannan’s scoreless streak at a Nationals-record 21 innings.
“He just didn’t have it. He’s human,” Washington manager Manny Acta said. “I’m not expecting him every five days to go out there and throw seven scoreless innings for us. His location just wasn’t there.”

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