Recap: Road Warriors. BUCS WIN.

The Pirates are 4-2. After playing 2 road series. Against division opponents. God, that sounds so weird, but it feels great to know that it's true. I try to tell myself, "calm down, it's still April," but I just don't care. Kevin Correia just outdueled a Cy Young pitcher and he's now 2-0. Yeah, the last starter for the Pirates to start 2-0 was Zach Duke last year, and we all know how that turned out. I still don't care. Joel Hanrahan leads the Majors in saves. Neil Walker is on fire, and tied for the League lead in RBIs. Life is good in Buccoland, for now.

Walker made his presence known in Archtown by blasting his second bomb of the year to deep right. Ground Rule Double city in the 9th from McCutchen and Overbay. Even Doumit managed to drive one home in between his 2 strikeouts. Speaking of which, Pedro had none in this game, which is great. The Bucs as a whole struck out only 6 times on the day, a lot better than the 10+ K outings in earlier games.

The Bucs batting corps did a really good job driving up the pitch counts of the Cards pitchers, especially Carpenter, who was close to 100 after just 5 innings. The final tally was 171 Cardinal pitches to 116 for the Pirates. Walker, Overbay, and Alvarez all went 2 for 5, while Cutch went 2 for 4 and was hit by a pitch. Doumit was apparently hit on the head by the bat of Yadier Molina, but I wasn't able to watch the game so I have no idea how bad it is. As much as I like to blast Doumit, having your top 2 catchers (along with Snyder) injured is really bad. Hopefully it's just a minor issue and he'll be back to allowing your grandma to steal second in no time.

Kevin Correia has been really surprising as i wasn't expecting all that much from him. He allowed just 5 hits and 2 walks in 7.0 IP today, which is great. He probably could have gone even longer, but he was pinch-hit for in an offensive situation that ultimately resulted in nothing. His ERA so far this year is 1.38. Yeah, I know, small sample size. Meek got back on track in the 8th with a perfect inning. Hanrahan broke the shutout, but got the job done in the 9th.

Tomorrow is the Home Opener at PNC Park, and Paul Maholm (0-0) will take the mound against Esmil Rogers, who has yet to pitch this year. The last time the Pirates were 4-2 was in 2007, and they promptly lost 4 games in a row. Every series is important, but if a team like the Pirates is going to do anything of note this year, it is very important that they at least take a split in this 4-game series with the Rockies. Let's Go Bucs.