Game 59: Pirates 5 Astros 2

I can only imagine that if you are Raul Chavez, the sweetest words in the history of the world are probably, "Pirates likely to demote Ronny Paulino." Chavez certainly went out and had himself a celebration last night with what a few thousand of his best friends, as he knocked in three runs and lead the Pirates to a nice little 5-3 comeback win over the Astros that very few people in Pittsburgh could actually care less about at the moment. Still, this is a Pirate blog and I will soldier on with this recap, even though I just dropped 1,000 emotionally draining words about the Penguins for FanHouse.

Zach Duke put together a pretty solid start for the Bucs tonight with 7 and 2/3 innings of two-run ball. He gave up seven hits, but managed to limit his walks to two and I think that helped minimize the damage. His strikeout rate is still terrifyingly low and I don't think he's going to have any consistency until he pulls that number up, but I'm sticking with the mantra that any start that keeps us in the game is a good one, so I guess that means Duke had a good start tonight. Except for the million foot bomb he gave up to Wiggy. That was no good, really.