Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Rocco game. Bucs WIN

R H E LOB
2 7 1 10
1 7 0 7

The Pirates finally caught a break.  No errors came back to haunt them, no dropped popups that turned into home runs, no baserunning blunders (well, at least none that cost any runs), no late inning fiascos that cost the Pirates a win.  Just a good solid effort, especially from the pitching staff, something that has been sorely lacking of late.  Paul Maholm went 8 innings, with 1 ER, 7 hits and no walks, and came away with his 5th win of the year.  Octavio Dotel was outstanding in relief, striking out 3 batters.  Even though he did hit the lead-off batter with a pitch, it didn't come back to hurt the Pirates' efforts.

On the batting side it was very evenly distributed.  7 players had 1 hit each.  Andrew McCutchen hit an RBI triple in the 3rd that bounced off the right center wall, and might have been an inside-the-park home run if he hadn't hesitated coming out of the box.  His speed around the bases is nothing short of incredible.  I never get tired of watching his helmet fly off while he's running.  Jose Tabata hit a nice RBI double in the 9th to score Ryan Doumit,  who almost didn't make it to the plate before the throw from right center came in.  No harm done, this time.

The only bad thing to note about this game is that the Pirates lost another 2nd baseman on the same type of pop fly that caused Ryan Church to collide with Neil Walker.  This time it was Bobby Crosby who collided with Lastings Milledge.  Delwyn Young came in to replace Crosby.  No word yet on whether Young will start at 2nd until Crosby or Walker recovers, or when that will happen.  I wish them both a swift recovery, and I hope the "RF collides with 2B" play never happens again.

Overall, it was a great effort by everyone on the team, something you don't always see around this time of year from the Pirates.  I hope this trend continues.

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