Sabathia tosses 1-hitter

PITTSBURGH (AP)—CC Sabathia pitched a one-hitter in his latest dominating start, allowing the Pirates only an infield single by Andy LaRoche in the fifth inning, and the Milwaukee Brewers beat Pittsburgh 7-0 Sunday for their eighth victory in nine games.

Sabathia (9-0) pitched the majors' fourth one-hitter this season and couldn't have come much closer to a no-hitter, with no Pirates batter except for LaRoche coming close to a hit.

The Pirates were held to four fly ball outs and had only several hard-hit balls during their 10th consecutive loss, with LaRoche's single rolling about 45 feet between the plate and the mound before Sabathia picked it up, only to drop it. The ball may have been hit too softly for Sabathia to get LaRoche at first, even if he had made the play cleanly. LaRoche had only one hit in his previous 32 at-bats.

Sabathia, 3-0 in five career starts against the Pirates, struck out 11 and walked three and faced only 29 batters, two above the minimum. He threw 79 of his 117 pitches for strikes.

Sabathia's previous low-hit game was a three-hitter, accomplished three times, including a 3-0 win over the Cardinals on July 23. His 9-0 record since being dealt by Cleveland to Milwaukee on July 7 matches Doyle Alexander's 9-0 with Detroit in 1987 as the best of any pitcher traded at midseason in the last 90 seasons.

Three of Sabathia's nine wins are shutouts, and he allowed one earned run in three others. His ERA is 1.43 for the Brewers.

Sabathia got the only run he needed when Ricky Weeks led off the game with his 11th homer, on a 3-2 pitch by Jeff Karstens. Karstens (2-4) is 0-4 since pitching 7 1-3 perfect innings against Arizona on Aug. 6, though two of the three runs against him Sunday came after he left the game.

Milwaukee, finishing its best month since September 1992, led 1-0 until Bill Hall doubled in two runs against reliever Tyler Yates in the seventh. The Brewers scored four times against three relievers in the eighth, with Gabe Kapler's single off Sean Burnett scoring two runs. Burnett also threw a run-scoring wild pitch.

The Brewers finished off a three-game sweep—they've won their last nine against the last-place Pirates—and have won 18 of 23. They went 20-7 in August, a year after falling apart while going 9-18 for the month.

The Pirates hadn't lost 10 in a row since dropping 13 consecutive games from June 15-28, 2006.

The other one-hitters this season were by James Shields of Tampa Bay against the Angels on May 9, Matt Garza of the Rays against Florida on June 26 and the Dodgers' Hiroki Kuroda against Atlanta on July 7. Jon Lester of the Red Sox pitched the majors' only no-hitter this season, beating Kansas City on May 19.