The Pirates took down the Brewers 6-5 in 14 innings this afternoon and improved their record to 9-12 on the season. It looked like it was going to be an easy win after the Pirates hammered the ball in the first and put 3 runs on the board on 2 home runs from Andy LaRoche and Andrew McCutchen, but Paul Maholm gave the lead up in bottom of the first and the offense shut down for awhile after that.
It was a pretty boring game after the first the whole way until the 9th inning when Ryan Doumit blasted his 3rd home run of the year off of Trevor Hoffman, his 2nd in as many nights. The Pirates got another solo shot from McCutchen in the 10th but gave up that lead and then wasted a golden opportunity in the 12th when Lastings Milledge popped up a bunt that lead to a double play. Fortunately, DJ Carrasco was excellent and pitched 3 scoreless innings, which was just enough to allow Garrett Jones' 14th inning RBI double to be the game winning hit.
The main thing I have to say about this game was how crucial Carrasco's performance was. Not only did he win the game for the Pirates, he saved the arms of Jack Taschner, Javier Lopez, and Brian Bass as the Pirates make a trip out to Los Angeles for a 4-game set. It would have been real rough not having any fresh arms going into a 4 game set against a high powered offense like the Dodgers. Luckily, Carrasco was excellent and gave the Pirates exactly what they needed and helped them win the series and set them up for another solid performance in their next one.
The Pirates also showed a little bit of intensity tonight, when Ryan Church and Andy LaRoche both got thrown out of the game for arguing bad strike calls. While any batter is going to be mad when they are called out on strikes when they feel that they shouldn't have been, it was kind of nice to see some anger out of the Pirates team. During the long losing streak there were a couple times I really wished John Russell would have come out and flipped out on an ump and got tossed or one of the players would show some anger and take it out on a gatorade cooler or something. They just seemed so lifeless and I think showing some frustration could have really fired some people up. While the ejections tonight really aren't anything to be discussed, it was just nice to see something different for once.
The Pirates have played two solid baseball games in a row now and hope to continue their success against the Dodgers. The pitching probables are as follows:
Thursday: Brian Burres vs. Clayton Kershaw
Friday: Charlie Morton vs. Chad Billingsley
Saturday: Jeff Karstens vs. TBA
Sunday: Zach Duke vs. Hiroki Kuroda
First pitch tomorrow is 10:10 eastern, Let's Go Bucs!
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