Pirates 2 Phillies 1- Congratulations Zach Duke

I'd like to go out of my way to thank Zach Duke and Kip Wells for single (or double i guess) handedly pulling this team out of the way of a humiliating four game sweep of the Phillies with two superb starts. It appears that most of the NL is mystified by Duke's changeup in his first two starts as he has 17 Ks in 14 innings, something that is entirely unexpected. As pointed out by Rory, Zach joins Josh Fogg as the only Pirates pitchers with career winning records at the moment.

So pre-game I try to look at the teams problems and I point to Mackowiak over Daryle Ward (not an easy thing for me to do) as the prime offensive culprit in this slump. Mackowiak responds with a key double while Ward goes 0-for-3 and fails to deliver Rory's much wanted sac fly (same link as above). Shows what I know. Ward did hit the ball hard several times and got robbed at least once, but that doesn't really count for much. Humberto Cota did deliver in a pinch for us with a big two run homer, especially since Rick White continued his trend of letting inherited runners score. As good as Doumit, Paulino, and Walker look, I hope we don't just give up on Cota. I see a lot of good things from him. Mesa closed things out with a typical Mesa save, you know, putting the tying run in scoring position with less than two outs then hanging on for dear life.

All the positives from this win don't cover up the obvious though. WE JUST SCORED SIX RUNS IN A FOUR GAME SERIES. Thanks to the aformentioned performances by Duke and Wells, we somehow managed a split. A month ago I would've told you this was a sign that we are becoming a good team. Now I'm leaning more towards saying that we were just plain lucky.