Game 109: Pirates 3 Cubs 0

There are two ways that I could write this post up. One of them is to talk about Karsten's outing and how it was a lot like Zach Duke's rookie year in 2005- great result but iffy route getting that result- and how it doesn't really bode well for down the road when he's made a couple starts and everyone's seen him. The other way to do it is to point out that with Jason Bay and Xavier Nady gone, the Pirates shut out the Cubs behind a starter they acquired last week and got a run and an outfield assist from the guys that they picked up yesterday.

The truth is, from what I could tell, that Karsten's didn't look fantastic, but he certainly wasn't bad and the Cubs couldn't manage to hit him hard, leading to six shutout innings from a spot in the rotation that might not have given us six scoreless innings total since May. It is, of course, far too soon to draw any conclusions from anything that happened today, but it was just nice to see the Pirates beat the Cubs and to see the guys we picked up contributing right away.