Game 138: Pirates 6 Reds 5

Did the Pirates really just string two wins in a row together? Tonight's win was a little more stirring than last night's in that Ohlendorf was not particularly impressive, but the Pirates put together some offense to back him and the bullpen held things together to bring home a win. You know, kind of how most wins happen in baseball games. The offense was a mixed bag tonight as they scored four runs against Edinson Volquez, but struck out a whopping 13 times before the Reds' bullpen even got involved. It was enough tonight, which I guess is more than they've been doing before the last two nights so I guess I won't complain that much.

The real story, of course, was Ohlendorf. He only struck out two in his six innings and I thought the Reds hit him pretty hard after he got through the lineup once. Both home runs he gave up (to Joey Votto and Chris Dickerson) were destroyed. Votto's was a laser beam to right field and Dickerson's was a bomb to left-center that landed well into the bullpen at Great American. He certainly wasn't awful and it's impossible to judge on one start, but the Reds are not an impressive offensive team and Ohlendorf didn't blow any one away tonight. He'll certainly get more starts to prove himself down the stretch this year and I'll be interested to see how they go. For now, though, we should probably enjoy these two wins and focus on winning Thursday. If we win then, that's three. That's called a winning streak. It has happened before.