Game 1: Cubs 3 Pirates 1  Written by Pat Lackey on .  The
easiest and probably most accurate way to describe the Pirates'
3-1 loss to the Cubs on Opening Day at PNC Park is probably
this: it was cold out and when it's cold out, hard-throwing
pitchers seem to do well, and as a result AJ Burnett and Jeff
Samardzija combined for 19 strikeouts between them in just 13
2/3 innings combined work.   Burnett was particularly awesome to
watch today, setting ten Cubs down on strikes in his 5 2/3
innings. He gave up all three Cubs' runs, though; two of them
came when Anthony Rizzo destroyed a mistake fastball in the
first inning and one more came when Garrett Jones attempted
poorly to play right field, letting a Wellington Castillo
flyball drop for an RBI double on the warning track in right
center. Other than that, Burnett was mostly unhittable. The
bullpen behind him, which got called in for quite a bit of work
due to Burnett needing 98 pitches to get through his 5 2/3
inning start in his quest to strike out All Of The