Fireworks. Bucs WIN

	R	H	E	LOB
	6	7	2	4
	12	17	0	8

This game had it all, highs and lows.  Ross Ohlendorf got yanked after just 1.1 IP, giving up 5 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, and 1 HR.  Carrasco came in for 3.1 innings of long relief, giving up 1 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, and 0 HR. The rest of the bullpen (Lopez, Donnelly, Meek, Hanrahan, Dotel) had a combined one-hitter, adding 3 more Ks in the process.

The offense, meanwhile, awoke in a huge way.  After going up 3-0 in the first inning, the lead was lost as the Astros came back 4-3.  But the Pirates came back in the bottom of the 2nd, making it 5-4.  And then it was the Astros turn to come back in the 5th, scoring 2 runs to take the lead again 6-5.  But in the bottom, the Pirates finally took the lead back for good, going up 7-6, and then adding 2 more in the 6th and 3 more in the 8th.

Every spot in the order had at least 1 hit, and the 2-8 spots all had two or more.  Jones, Cedeno, Tabata, Alvarez, and Walker all had doubles.  Neil Walker went 3 for 5 with 2 RBIs. Tabata and Milledge also had 2 RBIs each.  Even Ryan Church had a nice AB as a pinch hitter, scoring newly called up catcher Erik Kratz.  Was his calling up what sparked the Pirates offense in this game? Or was it the sold-out crowd atmosphere on fireworks night that helped to motivate the team? I don't know, but it was refreshing to not see a team steal bases on us at will, and it was great to see a guy like Kratz, a perennial minor leaguer, finally get a shot at the big leagues and do so well in his debut (2 for 5 with an RBI and a run).

As fir the other aspects of the game, Cutch stole another base, giving him 21 steals on the year, tying him in second place on the NL list with Nyjer Morgan.  Lastings Milledge also made a nice catch.

So the Pirates have the somewhat daunting task of winning the series against the noted Pirate-killer Roy Oswalt.  If the Pirates that show up look anything like the Pirates of this game, they might just have a chance.  No guarantees, as always.

Blowout. Bucs LOSE

	R	H	E	LOB
	12	15	1	5
	4	10	1	6

Late post as I was away from a computer all weekend.  This was a game to forget for the most part though.  There were a couple of highlights, including Pedro Alvarez going 2 for 4 and hitting his first major league home run, and Ryan Church going 3 for 3 with a home run and a walk.  I didn't see Church's home run, however, as I turned this game off in the 3rd when it was 7-1.  Maholm, recovering from his last bad outing nicely last time, fell back into the hole, giving up 10 hits, 8 R/7 ER, 2 walks and a K in just 3 innings of work.  Justin Thomas came in for 3 innings of long relief, giving up 3 more runs.  The final run was given up by Brendan Donnelly, but it didn't matter much at that point.

The Dirty Dozen. Bucs LOSE

	R	H	E	LOB
	4	9	0	7
	3	6	0	3

Another rally falls short, and the Bucs drop their 12th in a row.  At this point it's not really about talent anymore, except for starting pitching, but it's gonna take some time for these young guys to learn how to play the game at a Major League level.  We know that.  Doesn't mean it's any less frustrating to watch.  Just have to hope that they do better the next day.

The offense continues to exist only in the top half of the order, with all baserunners coming from the 1-5 spots.  Garrett Jones and Neil Walker both went 2 for 4, and Ryan Church (batting 5th) hit a bases loaded double to give the Pirates their only scoring play in the game.

Paul Maholm was excellent until his utter collapse in the 7th inning.  More tough luck for him, and the organization in general.  Bullpen seemed like it was back to form, but as it was the Indians they were pitching against, the jury is still out on whether they can get back to the consistent domination they had earlier in the year.

It pours. Bucs LOSE

	R	H	E	LOB
	4	7	1	10
	2	9	1	14

Slightly better this time, but the result is the same.  A good pitching effort is wasted by a lack of offense by the Bucs, even if Milledge and Church both had 3 hits.  This game wasn't on TV for unknown reasons.  I was kind of hoping that the rain would postpone the game, but it was merely delayed.  The Bucs streak of no rain-outs this season continues.  Charlie Morton only gave up 3 (!) runs, 2 in the second and a solo homer in the 3rd.  The Bucs rallied a bit in the 4th, scoring 2 off a Lastings Milledge triple and a Ronny Cedeno sac, but couldn't get anything going the rest of the game.

Very weird 9th.  Hanrahan strikes out the first two batters, and then loads the bases on walks.  A wild pitch third strike allows the runner to reach first and score a run.  John Russell is not happy with the call, as the Ump claimed that Jones's foot was off the bag on the throw.  Russell gets ejected for only the 2nd or so time in his career.

Nothing doing in the bottom.

GAME.

Morton's Good Start. Bucs WIN

	R	H	E	LOB
	2	5	0	4
	4	10	0	5

Charlie Morton had his first good start of the year, the start we knew he was capable of after his excellent starts last year.

Garrett Jones had 2 RBIs to lead the Bucs scoring.

An attempted rally by the Cubs in the 4th was cut short.  Ryan Church added an insurance homer in the 6th.  Relievers did the rest.  Best bullpen the Buccos have had in years.

GAME.

---

Miscellaneous shit

A very fast game, it ended in only 2 hours and 21 minutes.

No less than 4 Buccos had 2 hits, in addition to Ryan Church's home run: Bobby Crosby, Andrew McCutchen, Garrett Jones, and Ronny Cedeno.

Neither team had a single walk, but there were 3 players hit by pitches.

Steve Pearce had quite a few nifty defensive plays, but couldn't duplicate his AAA hitting prowess, going 0 for 3.

Bucs look for the sweep later tonight. A win would mean they jump to 3rd place in the division.

Go to Church. Bucs WIN

	R	H	E	LOB
	2	8	0	12
	3	8	0	5

Wasn't able to watch this game, for obvious reasons, so I'll have to go by the box score.  Basically, this game was all about home runs.

Andy LaRoche started things off with a big homer to the left corner.  He's starting to look like a good pickup if he keeps hitting the way he is.

Soriano homer in the top of the 4th and Soto homered in the top of the 6th to give the Cubs a 2-1 lead.

Ryan Church says "Not In My Town." A 2-out, 2-run shot by him over the Clemente Wall in the bottom of the 6th gave the Bucs the lead for good. 3-2.

Relievers took out the rest of the trash.

GAME.

---

Miscellaneous shit

Once again the Bucs win a one-run game.  they are now 6-1 in those situations.

Andrew McCutchen was out of the lineup, presumably with his ankle problem, although he was available as a pinch-hitter if needed.

Steve Pearce was on the bench, which in turn sent Brendan Donnelly to the DL and Raynor back to the Marlins.

3 Buccos had 2 hits: Andy LaRoche, Ryan Church (playing CF for Cutch), and Ronny Cedeno.  Cedeno went 2 for 3.

A total of 5 walks by the Buccos' pitching staff and only 1 by the Cubs contributed to the lopsided LOB stat. Meek apparently beaned some joke too.

Dotel got his 4th save of the season.  Meek and Hanrahan had holds.

Nearly 11,000 showed up during a Pens playoff game.

Ethier. Bucs LOSE

	R	H	E	LOB
	1	6	0	7
	5	11	0	8

Zach Duke wasn't terrible, but the Bucs offense was in this game.  Ryan Church was the only Bucco with more than 1 hit.  Cutch scored the only run for the Pirates, a solo drive to left center in the 1st.

For the Dodgers, Ethier hit a 3-run shot in the 3rd to take the lead for good.

GAME.

---

Miscellaneous shit

Ryan Doumit's 10-game hitting streak was snapped, going 0 for 4.  He still has the highest batting average on the team at .308 though.

Cutch now has 4 HRs to lead the Pirates.

Next game in like 5 minutes.  Why do you have to have a night game on Saturday, LA? Jagoffs.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Blass. Bucs SWEEP

	R	H	E	LOB
	3	5	1	5
	5	5	1	4

This game immediately turns into a pitching duel if not for Bronson Arroyo's meltdown in the 4th.  Only one player made it on base through 3 innings for both teams, a Maholm walk of Cabrera in the 1st.

In the 4th, Delwyn Young and Clutch get singles and Legend draws a walk to load the bases.  Ryan Church hits a single to shallow left to score one run, but the other baserunners are forced to hold.  Bobby Crosby gets hit by a pitch to score Young.  2-0.  Jason Jaramillo comes up to the plate.  Bases clearing double.

5-0.

That was pretty much it for the Pirates' bats, but that was all it took.  Jay Bruce hit 2 solo home runs and Maholm gave up a run on a double in the 7th, but it was all meaningless.  Octavio Dotel had 3 strikeouts in the 9th.

GAME.

---

Miscellaneous shit

• Much has been made about this season so far resembling the 1960 World Series.  I can definitely see where they are coming from.  Currently, the Pirates are 1 game behind the NL Leaders (St. Louis, San Francisco, and Philadelphia all are at 8-4) and a half game behind Florida (8-5).  And yet, the Bucs have the third worst run differential in all of baseball at -22.  Only Baltimore and Houston are doing worse (-24 and -29, respectively), but neither of those teams have more than 3 wins.  So what does this mean?  The Bucs had a few bad outings. And I mean really bad.  However, they're winning the close games.  Games where maybe in previous years they don't get it done.  The relievers, apart from those really bad games where the starter had already made the game a foregone conclusion, have been pretty good.  Not great, but good.  Good enough to get the job done when necessary.  Yeah, they might give up a run here and there.  Yeah, they might have that one night where they walk in 2 runs.  In those cases, the batters have stepped up, as evidenced by the 3 walk-off wins the Pirates have so far this year.  The only thing I can say about it is that I would rather take those close wins and a few blowout losses than to lose the close games and have a few blowout wins.  In the world of baseball, and especially for the Pirates, winning is everything.

• There were a lot of defensive highlights in the early part of this game.  Ronny Cedeno had a nice leaping throw in the 2nd to record an out at first that you can see here (it's the #4 play).  Just ignore the random splicing of clips from the Deadliest Catch.  Later in the game Garret Jones made a couple leaping grabs and Paul Maholm made a nice catch between the mound and first base.  Not exactly his circus throw of a few games ago, but pretty neat nonetheless.  Lastings Milledge made a nice diving catch at some point too.

• Paul Maholm had a great start today, with only 4 hits, 2 runs and 1 walk allowed.  He also had 5 strikeouts in his 6.6 innings.  The win improves his record to 1-1.

• Nearly 14,000 for a 43 degree, cloudy game is a pretty decent draw.

• Bucs take on the Brewers next at PNC.  This series will be a good measure of exactly how well this team is doing.

Dead even. Bucs WIN

	R	H	E	LOB
	6	9	0	5
	5	11	1	7

The end of this game is what I like to imagine playoff baseball is like.

The Bucs started out by taking a slow 3-0 lead through the 3rd, including an Aki Iwamura homer to left field.  How clutch has he been so far?  Very.

This lead was slowly eaten away by the Giants and by the end of the 6th the score was tied at 3.  The Pirates bats couldn't get anything from the 4th through the 7th.  The Pirates went down in order in 5 total innings (2nd, 4th-7th).  In 3 of those the batters were Andy LaRoche, Paul Maholm/Ryan Church, and Ronny Cedeno.  Hmm.

But then the Pirates were able to score one in the 8th to take the 4-3 lead thanks to a costly error by Edgar Renteria.  If that ball doesn't bounce out of his glove it was almost certainly an easy double play and the Bucs do not win this game.  Brendan Donnelly (who has been pretty clutch so far) gets things done in the bottom of the 8th by taking the Giants' bats down in order.

So, top of the 9th, Pirates up 4-3.  Bobby Crosby strikes out.  And Andy LaRoche is up to bat.  Oh boy, here we go.

What? A home run? Andy LaRoche?

Yes, it's true.  He blasts it out of the park to center.

5-3.

Then Ryan Church, who struck out in the 7th, hits a triple because some jobber on the Giants misplays the ball.  Aki Iwamura hits a clutch single to score Church.

6-3.

Ok, so the Bucs are up 6-3 in the bottom of the ninth, a comfortable lead for solid closer Octavio Dotel, right?

Wrong.

Pinch-hitter Eugenio Velez hits a two-run homer to deep right.  Suddenly, it's 6-5, and the Giants are at the top of their order.

But Dotel calms down and gets it together.  He takes the next three down, including a panda, which I guess must've escaped from the zoo or something.  Only in San Francisco.

GAME.

---

Miscellaneous shit

Paul Maholm made an amazing rolling scoop glove throw in the 3rd.  You can watch it here (the #1 play).

Garrett Jones made a nice reaching catch to end the game.  He had a nice game in other areas too, with 3 hits and 2 RBIs.

Ryan Doumit had a nice hit in the 3rd, scoring McCutch,  but got a little greedy trying to stretch it into a double.

Speaking of McCutchen, he appears to be getting into stride as he had a hit, scored 3 runs, and stole 2 bases.

Pirates now lead the NL in stolen bases with 8 (tied with Dodgers).  Their basestealing percentage is still 100%.

The Pirates pitchers, not normally known for strikeouts, had a nice outing with 8 combined.  Maholm had 3 over 5, Meek had 3 over 2, and Donnelly had 2 over 1 inning.

Bucs try to win the series in about 2.5 hours.

The Church of Jones and Doumit. Bucs WIN

	R	H	E	LOB
	5	12	2	10
	11	10	0	6

1st

Things started slow with the Pirates giving up 2 in the 1st and it seemed like it was going to be one of those days.

2-0

But then The Duke struck out Loney to end the half. It was all over for LA after that. They never led again.

Why?

Garrett effin Jones. Into the Allegheny it goes.

2-2

2nd

Dodgers were able to get one hit but otherwise couldn't beat Duke, who had a very solid game.

The LA joke catcher Martin can't pick up the ball on a Duke bunt, which allowed Duke to reach and runners advance, but the Bucs can't do anything with it.

3rd

More of the Duke. Manny "women's fertility drug" Ramirez gets a meaningless double. Duke kills that by taking care of Kemp.

Garrett Jones decides he's getting bored with this tie and breaks out his homer machine one more time.

3-2

Only the 6th Pirate in opening day history to hit two home runs.

4th

Duke decides to change it up and allow the Dodgers to get two hits in the 4th. What a tease. Shut down.

Ronny Cedeño stole a base in an otherwise uneventful half.

5th

Previously mentioned joke Martin decides to wander off second base when a Manny grounder is hit to Cedeño. Rundown commences.

Tag, you're a jobber.

In the bottom of the fifth the floodgates opened. Cutch was hit by a pitch, and then stole second. Garrett Jones's grounder to first moves Cutch to third. Then Doumit walked. Lastings Milledge hits a GRD to score Cutch. Clement is walked intentionally. Bases are juiced, but The Duke is up. So JR makes the decision to pinch-hit Ryan Church.

Everybody come home.

Cedeño drives in Church.

8-2

6th

The bullpen circus started in this inning. Taschner came in to pitch .6 of an inning, and is replaced by Carasco for the remaining .3. Still, no worries at this point.

Pirates go down in order for the only time in the game.

7th

Dodgers try to rally, scoring 2. Carasco is replaced by Meek. He lets in another run.

8-5

Clement reachs on another Dodgers error, but otherwise nothing interesting.

8th

Veteran Brendan Donnelly gets the nod for this inning. He takes care of business.

Then Doumit decides to kill the Dodgers dreams. 3-run homer.

11-5

9th

New closer Octavio Dotel comes in. Takes them down in order, with one K.

Pop the champagne, raise the jolly roger, the Bucs are in 1st place.

GAME.