Game 25: Pirates 5 Phillies 1

Remember before the game where I wrote about needing the starters to keep us in the game? If you don't, it's literally right below this post. But after losing three games in a row in which our starters took us out of the game before things started, Paul Maholm threw a complete game, 2-hit, 99-pitch breeze of a game (time: 2 hours and 17 minutes), shutting down the Phillies impressive offense and avoiding a sweep.

Maholm wasn't quite as great as the first glance might indicate (2 strikeouts against 4 walks is a strange line for a 2-hitter), but the Phillies didn't hit many balls hard against him and as a result, the defense managed to keep their heads in the game and not royally screw anything up, leading to one of the more complete games played by the Pirates this year. We can also officially declare Nate McLouth's mini-slump over as he launched two homers today (the second one nearly landing in the seats my dad and uncle split with some other guys during the season, ahh, I miss those seats) to give him 3 homers in the last two games against the Phillies. Adam LaRoche (2 hits) and Jose Bautista (3) had nearly half of our 12 hits today, which is as good a sign as any that they're in the process of breaking out of their early season slumps. At least, I hope that's what it means. I'm sick of having both of our corner infield slots be offensive black holes. It's just bad baseball.