Pirates 6 Dodgers 4

It would be a shame to waste 7 hits from Freddy Sanchez and Jack Wilson, a laser homer from Jose Bautista, and another non-awful start from Shawn Chacon, but the Pirates nearly did that tonight, nearly giving everyone brave (read: stupid) enough to stay up for this one a heart attack in the process.

Things started out innoncently enough with Freddy killing the ball all over the park and Bautista ripping a homer straight over center on such a straight beam that it could likely cut diamonds if they were put in the ball's trajectory to give the Bucs a 3-0 after the top of the fifth. A Bautista error in the bottom lead to 2 more LA runs and put them right back in the game, though. After the Bucs picked up three in the seventh, aided by a Dodger error, and hits by Duffy, Wilson, and Sanchez as well as an RBI double by Weapon X, the Dodgers came right back with two and they almost had more as Chacon ran out of gas and John Grabow couldn't get the one guy out he needed to. Matt Capps thankfully came in and put out the fire in the seventh by getting Nomar to pop up. In the eighth, Tracy proved that all of his talk about "not caring" whehter or not they beat up on the Dodgers and hurt their playoff chances is complete and utter bullshit by bringing Torres into the game with a runner on first and two outs. Sully got James Loney to fly out to end the 8th, but that choice may have very nearly cost us the game in the 9th. Torres clearly struggled in the ninth by giving up a single, hitting a batter, and throwing a wild pitch after recording an out. Then, in true roller coaster fashion he took three straight hitters to full counts. He struck out Matt Kemp, walked Nomar (on a very, very close pitch), and struck out Jeff Kent to seal up the win.

As much as I try to temper the hope that this recent hot streak inevitibly brings, I still can't shake the feeling that a game like tonight is one that the June Pirates just don't win and that the team we're seeing right now is different than the one that lost 14 in a row to the Twins, Royals, and co.