Pirates 3 Phillies 2

Talk about efficent, Paul Maholm cruised through 7 innings tonight on 96 pitches looking a lot like he did last year, scattering six hits and a walk and only yielding one run. Our offense wasn't much better at all. Actually, it was worse, managing only five base runners through the game with the only two extra base hits coming back to back in the fourth, a Bay double and a Burnitz homer. The pen also made things interesting, as after Damaso Marte sailed through two batters in the 8th Torres promptly came in and served up a homer to Rowand, then Gonzo and Hernandez combined to walk the bases loaded in the ninth before Hernandez induced an edge of the seat 5-3 double play to send the ginormous crowd (33,000) home sighing for relief and quoting Lou Brown "If we win tomorrow, that's three. That's a winning streak. It has happened before." Of course the most encouraging thing of these last two games has been the young pitching. Snell and Maholm have combined to show the large home crowds just how good this young staff can be (we already know what Duke and Perez can do, Duke is likely to do it, Perez... not so much). This team is going to win more games on the arms of this staff than they are on their bats, that's for sure. Now if we could only get those road games figured out...