As it stands, 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 threatening to get a hit during the team’s 10th consecutive loss.

Also, Sabathia pitched with almost no pressure with a multiple-run lead in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings, which wouldn’t have been the case if he had a no-hitter going and every late-innings pitch would have been critical. And the Pirates players did not bat in those innings while thinking their team was being no-hit, a mindset that might have changed their approach at the plate.

Sabathia accepted the scoring call calmly, blaming himself for LaRoche getting on.

“The ball was still rolling and I probably should have picked it up with my glove. We probably wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Sabathia said. “I think if I pick it up with my glove, I get him.”

Sabathia wouldn’t speculate whether he would have gotten LaRoche if he had picked the ball up cleanly barehanded.

Maybe Sabathia felt he could make a play as he did the inning before, when he caught Nate McLouth’s line drive up the middle with the palm of his right hand and flipped the ball to first to turn a double play.

LaRoche was looking for a changeup but got a slider — the first one he’d seen from Sabathia in two at-bats — and barely got his bat on it.

“I just got it on the ground,” he said. “I’d like to think it was a hit. From a selfish standpoint I’d like it to be a hit, but you could make a case either way. But I’m hitting .160 — I need every hit I can get.”

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.

“He’s been dominant since he came over and, hopefully, he and rest of the team will take us to the promised land,” Bill Hall said.

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 starter 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.

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 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.

Notes: Milwaukee (80-56) is 24 games above .500 for the first time since September 1992. ... The Brewers are 11-1 with nine consecutive wins against Pittsburgh, with three games remaining in Milwaukee in late September. They are 5-1 in PNC Park, where they were 22-43 before this season. ... Pirates SS Jack Wilson was lifted in the ninth with a bruised right index finger.

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