Game 67: Pirates 7 Nationals 5

I've decided that I'm going to take all of the pitching performances from this series with a grain of salt. Tom Gorzelanny seemed to look decent on the mound today, but he was facing a team that was batting Aaron Boone cleanup. Therefore, it's impossible to judge how he actually pitched today except to say that he certainly did more than enough to keep the Pirates in this game. In fact, if it wasn't for Sean Burnett's inability to strand any inherited runners, Gorzo's line today would look much more impressive. Still, he put those base runners there and it was against the Nationals.

Meanwhile, Ryan Doumit continued on his quest to destroy all forms of pitching. He's on a hot-streak unlike any Pirate since Jason Bay's ten homers in ten days back in May of '06. After a first inning two-run blast today, he hit four homers in three games against the Nats and he went on to add an RBI single in the fifth, just for good measure. The bullpen managed to hold on to things even without Matt Capps, who got a well-earned off-day after pitching in four straight games.

Anyways, the Pirates managed to outplay a team worse than them for three straight days and they even managed to win two of those games. Weird, huh?