Game 96: Pirates 7 Astros 3

First a word on WHYGAVS Night. Sorry I kinda dropped the ball on the planning of this thing. If we're all still around next year and the Pirates haven't driven us completely away, then I'll try to make sure one of the weekends I get home next summer is a home weekend and we'll make sure we do this right next time around. As for this one, thanks to Brian and a host of other Lackeys for showing up, as well as Dana and Jeremy for stopping by to say hello. If you're wondering what watching a game is like, well, it's kind of like being in the comments for a game, only with real voices. Lots of proclamations of doom and being sure the Pirates are going to blow a big lead, only to be physically relieved when they don't.

Finally, the losing streak is over. Paul Maholm didn't seem to be pitching incredibly well tonight, but he got through six innings without allowing a run and he and Salomon Torres danced through raindrops to only allow 2 runs to score in the seventh. Torres and Marte did a similar dance in the eighth (allowing one run this time), and Shawn Chacon made things interesting, but ultimately nailed down a scoreless ninth.

But this one wasn't about the pitching. It was about the Pirates actually scoring runs. We all laughed about Matt Kata in the starting lineup, but he doubled his Pirate hit total and scored twice out of the leadoff slot. Adam LaRoche had three hits (he's got the same average as Jason Bay now) and drove in a pair, Jason Bay hit two weak pop-ups to Chris Burke with Freddy Sanchez on third base both times and Freddy scored both times, and Freddy hit his third (!) home run since the break to put the icing on the cake. And all of this came after Wandy Rodriguez set down the first nine batters and had nightmarish visions of a Wandy perfecto dancing in our heads. Whew. That would've been embarassing.

Oh, and if you were wondering, just in my field of view there were two (2) people reading Harry Potter in the stands instead of watching the game. Who said Pittsburghers can't read?