Game 33: Pirates 6 Cubs 4

Who would've thought that a lineup in which the five best hitters on the team occupied the first five slots in the batting order would've resulted in an un-Pirate-like 6 runs and a win? Amazing, isn't it?

All joking aside, isn't it kind of sad that we consider six runs in a win to be more or less an offensive outburst? Still, we did manage to win the series against the previously on fire Cubbies and that's nothing to complain about. Paul Maholm threw 7 and 1/3 pretty decent innings (allowing four runs) and Jason Bay's bat finally woke up as he doubled two runs in in the first and scored later on Xavier Nady's sac fly, then homered in the fifth to help provide two-thirds of the Pirates' six runs today. This is about the time that he caught fire last year and started hitting homers like he was playing on a Little League field. It'd be great if he could do that again. And it would be unfair to fail to mention that Salomon Torres had his second lights out save of this series, striking out two of the three batters he faced. Maybe they really were just the April blues for Sully.

Somehow, despite the terrible offense this year, the Pirates are 15-18 coming into a million game homestand this weekend.