Pirates 7 Nats 6

For the second night in a row, a funny thing happened with the Pirates. Placed in a situation where they had typically failed in the first half of the year, the Pirates managed to squeeze out another win tonight. Tonight the situation was bottom of the ninth, tie game, bases loaded, no outs. With the fateful D'Backs game of mid-June fresh in mind and Jose Bautista's strikeout causing Pirate fans to again fear the worst, Ronnie Paulino stepped up and delievered a game winning single (which was actually a ground rule double, but the game ends once the first run crosses) and got the Buccos off to their first two game winning skein in over a month (since that fateful series in San Francisco that had all of our hopes so high). Sure, it's only the Nationals, but last time I checked, we're only the Pirates.

The whole game was a see-saw affair, starting with Soriano's depositing Snell's first pitch into the stands and the Pirates responding with 2 in the bottom of the first on a 2 run Jason Bay single. The Bucs stranded 12 guys, the Nats stranded 14 (bringing their 2 day total to 26). Again, the pitching staff struggled with the strike zone with 8 walks tonight, six by Snell in his 5 innings. The offense, however, racked up 14 more hits lead by 3 from Casey and 2 apiece from JWilson, Sanchez, Paulino, and Randa. Playing this way may not beat many teams, but it is beating the Nationals, at least for now.

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