Monday, the Pirates were mashing the ball. They hit 3 home runs and had a 3-run double, which helped them put up 11 runs, which would have been good enough to beat almost anyone in the league. Tonight they only put up 4, and they still found a way to win the game. I'm not sure which win I savor more, but it just might be tonight's.
The offense started in the first inning again tonight, as Garrett Jones hit his 3rd home run in 2 games and drove in Akinori Iwamura, who walked, and Andrew McCutchen, who singled. The Pirates were then silent the whole way until the tenth inning, when Ronny Cedeno drove in Lastings Milledge to seal the win.
Tonight was a different night at the ballpark for me. Monday my entire focus was on the game. I had a scorecard in hand and was only 1 section away from the field. Tonight I was with a larger group of friends and was way up in the 300's, so it made it harder to really focus on what was going on, but here's what I noticed:
- The bullpen was outstanding. This was obviously the story of the game. Pirates starter Ross Ohlendorf had a decent start, only giving up 3 runs (2 earned) in 5 innings of work, but he threw a lot of balls and only struck out one batter. He also walked 3 batters, he just didn't look like himself out there. Luck was on his side and he got out of the game with the score tied 3-3. That's what the bullpen took over. The combination of Evan Meek, Javier Lopez, DJ Carrasco, Octavio Dotel, and Brendan Donnelly put together 5 scoreless innings. They surrendered only 1 hit in those innings, although they did walk 6. DJ Carrasco probably had the best outing, throwing 11 of his 15 pitches for strikes and setting down the Dodgers 1-2-3 in the 8th. Octavio Dotel had a tough beginning to his inning, as a misplayed single turned into a double, which was followed by a wild pitch, leading to a runner on 3rd with nobody out scenario. This had a lot of Pirate fans uneasy. I heard a lot of negative comments about how the bullpen was going to blow it and the Pirates were going to be the Pirates and lose like normal. However, Dotel worked his way out of the jam and put up a 0. When he broke Manny's bat and got him to ground out to end the threat, the crowd had a big sigh of relief and seemed to realize that maybe this team isn't the usual Pirates they see every year. If the bullpen can consistently put together games like they played tonight, we're in great shape.
- Iwamura's full count streak continues. Aki saw 33 pitches tonight and got 3 balls on him in every at bat. That is fantastic work from the Pirates lead off hitter. It's not often you can point to a guy who hasn't registered a hit yet as one of the top offensive performers, but this is definitely the case with Iwamura. With how things look now, he is going to find the basepaths a whole lot this year and score a lot of runs with McCutchen and Jones behind him. His patience seems to be rubbing off on other players too, as a lot of guys are showing great composure at the dish.
- Jeff Clement looked awful. He was 0/4 with 3 strikeouts. He was not being patient at the plate and having some seriously ugly swings up there. He did not look comfortable at all at the plate, although he did play pretty sound defense again. Hopefully Jeff will keep his head up and stay within himself at the plate so he can start producing offensively.
- The Dodgers played some really bad defense. While only one error found its way on the board for LA, there were multiple plays that could have been made to help them out. The one error that was recorded turned out to cost them the game. Lastings Milledge hit a sharp ground ball a couple steps to the right of second baseman Blake DeWitt, who got to it but had it pop out of his glove, he then rushed the throw to first and misses his target and Milledge was safe. He would come around to score the winning run on Ronny Cedeno's game-winning single.