Pirates 12 Marlins 9
Umm, holy crap. Forgetting the fact that Tracy will probably take credit for this one with all of his insane lineup tinkering and the fact that it's quite possible that two of the three worst teams in baseball were on the field, that was an amazingly entertaining game. Lots of thoughts on this:
- I don't like Santos, but to bear down and toss five scoreless innings after that awful first is really impressive. He was a big part of keeping us in the game early on.
- You could kind of see hints of it in the Washington and Arizona series, but Jason Bay is seeing the ball again. He wasn't that far from a two grand slam night, missing the first one by about four feet on the Clemente Wall and putting a serious charge into that sac fly in the 8th on a swing that broke his bat. One game is kind of early to say that he's "back", but everything starts somewhere.
- Craig Wilson on base five times. The man is a machine.
- Ronnie Paulino, Jose Castillo, on fire.
- Surprisingly, Nate McLouth also on fire. His average is up almost 70 points from being at .176 on May 4th.
- They lack power, but the when Bautista/McLouth/Sanchez bat 1-2-3 it seems like they're all on base all the time. Bautista scored three runs tonight without a hit. That's like Jerome Bettis' 5 carries, 1 yard, 3 TD game. Well, it wasn't that improbable, but close.
- Jeromy Burnitz, still not on fire. His "2-RBI hit" was a sharp ground ball hit right at Jacobs with DP written all over it and Jacobs let the ball play him. He then meandered around the bases like... I won't even compare him to anything because it would be terribly offensive to whatever I compared him to. Who doesn't know that on a run down, you immediately take the next base? The replay showed him running to first, stopping, breaking for second, stopping again, then breaking for second again. Inexcusable.
- Watching Freddy Sanchez at short is like watching Jack Wilson with slightly less of an arm. Does Littlefield or Tracy still think anyone will still buy Randa as a "defensive upgrade" at this point?
- Torres... ugh. I don't know if the stats back me up on this or not, but I get queasy whenever he comes out for a second inning. We've got plenty of bullpen with the extra day off due to rain and the good performances most of the rotation has given us of late, why risk it?
- Apparently giving Gonzo an extra year to mature as a closer under Mesa was a bad idea. That was a Mesa-like save if I've ever seen one tonight. Still, to throw a 3-2 breaking ball with the bases loaded an no outs in a game like tonight takes some balls, even if it is only Reggie Abercrombie at the plate.
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