Pirates 6 Marlins 3

Well, there were some unexpected surprises tonight. Chris Duffy tops the list with four hits and two stolen bases (though one came on the tail end of a double steal with Lawton as the lead runner). He's certainly doing his best Tike Redman circa 2003 impression. Let's just hope he doesn't try to impersonate the 04-05 Tike later down the road. Lawton also had four hits and three steals (the plethora of steals tonight kind of makes my argument against stealing bases a little weak, but I hate to see us run ourselves out of innings). Hopefully this is a nice parting gift from Mr. Lawton on his way out of town. Same goes for Daryle Ward, who also got the start tonight (hopefully Eldred's shoulder is OK after his diving catch on Sunday in which, as Bob Walk theorized, he did more damage to the ground than the ground did to him) and had three hits and three RBIs (though he did hit into a 5-2-3 DP with bases loaded and no outs in the 8th with a shot to put things out of reach). Again, as much as I've come to like the D-Train, I hope this is a nice parting gift from him to us. As nice as three wins out of four from Colorado was, winning against a decent team is always a nice surprise, especially after the way our second half started against two teams on the same level as the Marlins. Our last lengthy streak of decent baseball (remember that one, way back in the beginning of June before interleague play, back when Daryle Ward could hit homers, Rob Mackowiak was hitting .350, and Zach Duke was just a AAA glint in our eyes?) started against the Marlins. I suppose it's probably too much to hope the Fish can trigger another one, but hope is really all we have at this point.

UPDATE (11:09 PM): And of course, I forgot the Fogginator's first win since JUNE. He's made a bunch of good starts since then, but got absolutely no runs. It was good to see us pick him up on a night when he didn't have very good stuff.