Brewers 4 Pirates 2

I'm just curious, but if anyone has Jose Mesa's numbers in non-save situations last year I'd absolutely love to see them. I'm pretty sure they weren't great. Anyways, I know exactly what Mike Gonzalez's numbers are this year, last year, lefty, righty, all in non-save situations. You know what? They ARE great. He only threw 11 pitches in the 8th, it certainly would have made sense to let him go back out for the ninth, especially because I'm not exactly sure what Lloyd's plan was for extra innings tonight. Tie game in the 9th, if you don't score you've already used White, Torres, Gonzalez, and Mesa, all of our best relievers (yes, even Rick White). Who pitches in the 10th? Grabow? Vogelsong? Meadows? I bet the Brewers were shaking in their spikes thinking about that. Closers close, that's what they do. Maybe if they haven't had work for a week you put them into a blowout. Maybe in a life or death playoff situation they work the 9th of a tie game when your other options are exhausted. Tonight didn't apply to any of those standards, and anyone that has watched Mesa (or *shudder* Mike Williams before him) work, it's clear that closers work differently in a save situation than in a non-save situation, even when it's a tie game. Not only that, Mesa had given up a run in two of his last three outings (both save situations with a 2 or 3 run lead). Gonzalez hasn't given up a run since April 13th. I'm not suggesting Gonzalez should close, I'm just saying let the closers close and let the other relievers do their own jobs. It wasn't a hard decision and he still made the wrong one.

The wrong Kip showed up again tonight. He was good but not great, and in the one inning when he needed to have "it", he didn't (the fourth). He beaned a batter and gave up a two strike sac fly to the pitcher. He walked four in six innings. Pretty much the same old Kip. Tonight was pretty much the same old Pirates we got used to in April. No clutch hits, no real drive to play hard or win. They seem to hate something about Pittsburgh. I just don't get it. We need Redman and his mutton chopped protege to go out there and give us a couple good starts to finish this series off, because I really can't handle losing another series to the Brewers. I don't care what anyone says, they're not that much better than us.