PITTSBURGH -- Kip Wells showed the Pirates what a No. 1 starter is supposed to look like on opening day. The finish by Jose Mesa was just as good.
Wells often was overpowering in working out of two big jams and outdueling Kevin Millwood, and the Pirates rode Craig Wilson's homer and Tike Redman's tie-breaking double to a 2-1 victory Monday over the Philadelphia Phillies.
Wells (1-0) provided the strong start with seven strikeouts in six shutout innings. Mesa, the Phillies' castoff closer, pitched a perfect ninth for the save against his former club.
The Phillies dumped Mesa and his 6.28 ERA after last season to trade for former Astros closer Billy Wagner, even though Mesa had 111 saves in three seasons with them.
Mesa was relieved to preserve this lead; he still remembers blowing a 2-1 lead and the save against Florida in his first game with Philadelphia.
"But I'm not thinking about who I'm pitching against or what they might be thinking in the other dugout," said Mesa, who previously had a save against every NL club except Philadelphia. "I'm sure they wanted to get me, but all I'm trying to do is prove to my new team that I can pitch and get big outs in ninth inning."
Wells did that through six innings. After that, a missed sign may have cost the Phillies a potential big inning against a Pirates bullpen that had an NL-worst 4.84 ERA last season.
With the Pirates up 2-0, Pat Burrell singled for his third hit to the start the eighth and reliever Salomon Torres walked Bobby Abreu. But third baseman Chris Stynes couldn't get to third in time to cover on Lieberthal's sacrifice bunt, and Torres settled for the out at first. After Jimmy Rollins' sacrifice fly, David Bell grounded out to strand the potential tying run on second.
One problem: manager Larry Bowa said the bunt sign wasn't on for Lieberthal.
"He missed a sign, crucial sign; there was no bunt on," Bowa said. "He thought he saw the bunt. He hasn't bunted in 10 years. That happens, you miss signs, but he didn't try to do it."
The Pirates took a 1-0 lead against Millwood (0-1) on Redman's RBI double following Jack Wilson's single in the fifth. An inning later, Craig Wilson homered on a 3-2 pitch into the center-field seats.
The pitch before, Wilson lined a Millwood slider foul by only a few feet into the left-field stands.
"I was just trying to stay up the middle with the ball," Wilson said. "A lot of time you see when a guy pulls a ball foul, he (overswings) and ends up sitting down after the next pitch. I was looking for a fastball and to adjust off that, and I just stayed with it."
Before that, Wells, whose 2.12 home ERA last season was the NL's best, and Millwood proved once again that spring training doesn't matter when the teams head home, the weather cools down and the games start to count.
Neither pitcher won a spring training start on teams that lost a combined 41 games; the Phillies' 21 losses were the most of any team, and the Pirates' 20 were their most since 1985.
But both pitchers were sharp from the start, and the sellout crowd of 35,702 -- many wearing Steelers garb on a sunny but chilly 44-degree day -- acted almost as if it were a football game, with the loudest cheers going to defensive plays and Wells' strikeouts.
Wells said beforehand he wanted to set the tone for the Pirates' season by giving them a strong start in his first opening day assignment, and he did that. He worked out of a two-on, two-out jam in the third by getting Abreu to fly out, then struck out Lieberthal, Rollins and Bell in succession to end the sixth with two on.
"His intensity was outstanding and he prepared well for this start," manager Lloyd McClendon said. "It's a sign he's starting to mature into and evolve into a quality pitcher."
Lieberthal could tell early on that Wells' sinker was moving and he would be hard to hit as the late-afternoon shadows crossed the PNC Park infield. Wells was pulled only because he threw 105 pitches in six innings, about half of them in the first two innings.
"He threw incredible," Lieberthal said.
Millwood, who beat the Marlins on opening day last year, had to be content with allowing two runs and seven hits over six innings.
"If our pitchers throw like that, we'll win 100 games," Bowa said.
Notes
- The Phillies left 10 on base.
- The Pirates announced contract extensions for McClendon (through 2005, with a club option for 2006) and general manager Dave Littlefield (through 2007) several hours before the opening pitch.
- Burrell, trying to bounce back from an offseason in which his RBI dropped from 116 to 64, had three hits.
- Craig Wilson is 3-for-6 against Millwood with a double, triple and homer.
- The Pirates had lost nine of their previous 10 home openers, winning only in 2002.
- Former Pirates manager Chuck Tanner threw out the ceremonial first pitch. This is the 25th anniversary of the Pirates' last World Series-winning team, which Tanner managed.
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