Game 13: Pirates 6 Dodgers 4

Holy crap.

First things first, getting the Vin Scully broadcast on Extra Innings tonight was an absolute pleasure. I don't think I can possibly overstate how much I enjoyed listening to him. If you got the regular Brownie/Walkie broadcast, here's some of what you missed:

• Repeated incredulity at Zach Duke's lack of strikeouts, once quipping, "You know it's hard to pitch in the big leagues, but especially so when you don't strike anybody out." When you do something that surprises Vin Scully, who's seen about a bajillion baseball games, that's really saying something. And not in a good way for Duke tonight.
  
• A long story about how the first born male in each branch of the Nady family is always named Xavier, meaning that X is really "Xavier Nady the sixth." I am 90% certain this is not true.
  
• Explaining Tyler Yates' fastball with his Hawaiian upbringing and fondness for surfing: "All that paddling really builds up the arm and shoulder strength."
• When Luis Rivas played in Minnesota, he used to talk to himself at second base. His teammates decided that he was talking to someone named "Gazoo." Rivas promptly stopped this behavior and someone asked him where Gazoo went. Rivas responded, "He got busted for drugs."
• Something about a first baseman named Doug Mint-Cabbage.
  
• After Ryan Doumit dropped a pop-up behind the plate: "So, they came in here with a three game winning streak and you started to wonder, 'Hey, maybe it's a different Pirate club,' but it really doesn't look that way. Not tonight."

To that point, Vin was dead on. Duke didn't look particularly great (no strikeouts in six innings), there was a lot of sloppy play in the field (a balk and a mix-up between Doumit and Duke lead to a run, Doumit's dropped pop-up, bad at-bats, etc. etc. etc ... you know the story by heart at this point), and the Pirates seemed to be cruising towards a 4-3 loss with the perfect Takashi Saito on the mound, two-outs, and a flu-stricken April-addled Adam LaRoche at the plate. Somehow, LaRoche singled, moving pinch-runner Brian Bixler into scoring position. Of course, scoring position was moot because Nate McLouth took it upon himself to extend his season-long hitting streak with a three run bomb into right-center field. Now I'm inexplicably writing the recap to another Pirate win as the team pulls above .500 for the first time since 2-1. I mean, it's only 13 games, but I feel like this team could be 2-11 just as easily as they're 7-6. What the hell is going on?