elivery to Samuels. This time the line was just a little straig

ATLANTA -- Pirates manager Clint Hurdle isnt ready to say whether Jeff Locke will take another turn in the rotation.Were evaluating everything here because we are running out of games, Hurdle said. Thats a fair question, but the answers not going to come right now.Locke blew a four-run lead and reliever Juan Nicasio didnt fare much better in Pittsburghs 8-4 loss to the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday night.Ender Inciarte broke a tie with an RBI single in the fifth inning for the Braves. They are last in the major leagues in runs, but had 15 hits and scored eight straight runs.Pittsburgh, which began the day two games out of a wild-card spot, has lost four five. Atlanta improved to 17-39 at Turner Field, the worst home record in the majors.Locke (8-7) allowed nine hits, five runs, two walks and struck out one in 4 1/3 innings. Locke is 0-2 with an 11.91 ERA in his last three starts.I got ahead of plenty of guys, just couldnt put anybody away, Locke said.Atlanta scored two runs in the sixth and one in the seventh off Nicasio, taking an 8-4 lead on Adonis Garcias RBI single, Matt Kemps sacrifice fly and Erick Aybars RBI triple.Braves starter Rob Whalen (1-0), making his first career appearance, gave up four hits, four runs, four walks and struck out five in five innings.Whalen put himself in a 4-0 hole on Matt Joyces 11th homer, a three-run shot, and a run that scored on a wild pitch. He labored early, throwing balls on 32 of his first 62 pitches.I was just trying to battle through it the best I can, Whalen said. What an amazing job by the offense to come through there and pick me up and keep chipping that whole game. It makes it a little easier.Atlanta crept back in the game on Anthony Reckers RBI groundout in the second, Freddie Freemans RBI double in the third and Reckers RBI double, which made it 4-3 in the fourth.The Braves took a 5-4 lead in the fifth on Nick Markakis sacrifice fly and Inciartes single. Inciarte went 3 for 4 and has hit safely in a season-best 14 straight games. He has a .377 average since July 19.Joyce, in the lineup for slumping Andrew McCutchen, is hitting .294 with three homers and nine RBI in his last 10 starts.TRAINERS ROOMStarling Marte was hit by two pitches but stayed in the game. The first one in the first grazed his left hand, but the next one in the fifth hit his left hand solidly. Marte has been hit by 15 pitches, third-most in the NL. ... C Francisco Cervelli is still being evaluated after getting hit in the left side of the helmet by a pitch on Tuesday. Cervelli, whos had concussion issues in his career, left the game after noticing his helmet was cracked as he stood at first base a few minutes later.ROTATION ROUNDABOUTThe Braves have used 13 starting pitchers this season, their most since 1987 when they lost 92 games. The Atlanta franchise record of 15 was set in 1975 when the Braves lost 94 games.ROSTER MOVESThe Braves optioned RHP Ryan Weber and INF Daniel Castro to Triple-A Gwinnett and selected the contracts of Whalen and RHP Brandon Cunniff.UP NEXTPirates: RHP Ryan Vogelsong (1-1) is 2/3 with a 5.08 ERA in five career starts and three relief appearances against AtlantaBraves: RHP Tyrell Jenkins (1-2) will make his fifth career start. He has never faced Pittsburgh. Cheap Mariners Jerseys China . Francis told several hundred members of the European Olympic Committees that when sport "is considered only in economic terms and consequently for victory at every cost . Cheap Edgar Martinez Jersey . Duchene scored two goals and had an assist, helping the Colorado Avalanche beat the Carolina Hurricanes 4-2 on Friday night to match the best 10-game start in team history. http://www.cheapmarinersjerseys.com/?tag=cheap-ken-griffey-jersey . - Raiders general manager Reggie McKenzie never doubted he would bring back coach Dennis Allen for a third year despite back-to-back 4-12 records. Cheap MLB Jerseys Authentic . The Nashville Predators were glad their captain was still on their side. Weber had a goal and two assists, and Roman Josi scored the shootout winner to lift the Predators to a 4-3 win over the Flyers on Thursday night. Cheap Jay Buhner Jersey . -- New England Revolution goalkeeper Matt Reis is retiring after a 16-year career to become the goalie coach for the Los Angeles Galaxy. Ever since Indias tour of Sri Lanka last year, R Ashwin has regularly bowled without a fielder at cover against right-hand batsmen in Tests. He has tried to tempt them to hit against the break, into that gap, and bowl them through the gate. Wary of his dip and command of length, the batsmen have ignored the bait and played him with caution.Not so Rajendra Chandrika, against Ashwins first ball in Antigua. Chandrika went for the drive, connected sweetly, and picked up four runs. He tried the same shot three balls later; this time the ball dipped on him and turned past his inside edge. Instead of crashing into the stumps, the ball bounced over them.Later in West Indies first innings, Ashwin bowled a similar delivery to Shane Dowrich, with near-identical consequences. Near-identical, because this ball spun past leg stump rather than bouncing over the stumps. It beat the keeper and went for four byes.For his first 24 overs of the match, Ashwin was wicketless. The closest he came was when Dowrich edged him, and Ajinkya Rahane claimed a low catch diving forward at slip. The decision went to the third umpire, who ruled it not out when replays seemed to show the ball dying a couple of centimeters short of Rahanes fingers.For some reason, perhaps because he was bowling unusually short spells - in the first innings, they lasted three, five, three and six overs - he took time to achieve rhythm, and dropped short far more frequently than he has done in recent months. Kraigg Brathwaite, Darren Bravo and Dowrich cut him for fours in the first innings, and his second innings seemed to be going the same way when Marlon Samuels punished a short, wide ball in his fifth over.Samuels hit him for two more fours in the same over, through the covers and over mid-off. Ashwin had scored a century in Indias innings; it looked like he wouldnt have too much to celebrate with the ball.His struggle, though, had little to do with how the West Indies batsmen were playing him. There always seemed a hint of insecurity in their defence, a sense that they werent quite at ease with his drift and dip. It felt like one good spell could change Ashwins fortunes. But no one could have predicted how drastically they would change.When the players returned after an early lunch forced by a brief shower, Ashwin began to worry Samuels. Three times in the same over, the ball dipped and landed shorter than Samuels expected, and his forward press left him a long way from the pitch of the ball. Twice the ball beat his inside edge and hit front pad. Once it brushed his outside edge and rolled away wide of slip. Apart from the two runs that accrued from that edge, Ashwin didnt concede a run in his first two overs after lunch. In his third, he seemed to drop another ball just a tad short. Chandrika rose to cut, but the ball jumped at him, and a thick edge flew wide of slip.Two balls later, Ashwin broke throough.dddddddddddd The front-foot flick is a hazardous shot against an offspinner when hes getting the ball to dip, particularly when he has a packed leg-side field, as Ashwin did right through the match, and when those leg-side fielders include a short leg for the inside-edge onto pad and a short midwicket for the uppish, early flick.Chandrikas flick didnt end up in the hands of short leg or short midwicket. It merely grazed - or perhaps didnt, so inconclusive were replays - his inside edge, and ballooned to the wicketkeeper off his pad. At any rate, Chandrika didnt protest.In Ashwins next over, another batsman paid the price for that loose front-foot flick. Jermaine Blackwoods Test match ended with no runs from ten balls faced.His stay could have been even shorter. The first ball of the same over, he had groped forward to defend a flighted ball outside off stump, and had found himself playing down the wrong line. The ball had curled away from him in the air, and turned back just a touch and narrowly missed his outside edge.A greater reliance on the offbreak has often been heralded as the reason for Ashwins renaissance as a bowler over the last year and a half. That is only half the story, and doesnt acknowledge that his offbreak is also far more potent than it used to be. After Ashwin ironed out a few technical kinks in his action, the ball now comes out of his hand exactly as he wants it to, more often than not, and does more in the air and off the pitch than it used to.Thanks to the amount of dip he gets, he has that much more chance of beating the inside edge when he turns it big. And thanks to the away-drift he can achieve - aided on the fourth day in Antigua by a strong breeze blowing across the ground, from east to west - he can also beat the outside edge with his offbreak.Two overs after he had beaten Blackwoods bat with drift, he bowled a similar delivery to Samuels. This time the line was just a little straighter, and when the ball curled away just enough to make Samuels play down the wrong line, and turned minimally enough to beat his outside edge, the only thing that remained in its path was the top of off stump.Just like that, Ashwin had three wickets. It only took him six more overs to complete his 17th Test-match five-for. It seemed all too easy, and, truth be told, it was.West Indies batsmen kept making the same mistakes. Just like Chandrika and Blackwood before him, Roston Chase pushed at the ball, playing far out in front of his body. And then, ignoring the dip Ashwin was getting nearly every ball, Jason Holder drove against the turn, and left a big gap between bat and pad.Just like they had done against Mohammed Shami in the first innings, West Indies had collapsed at the first sign of sustained pressure. ' ' '