Wow, over the course of one week the Pirates went from a fringe curiosity of at team to national attention. Wouldn't be the first time, but is this time different?
25 June - Pirates 9 Mariners 4 - So this game was kinda special because I was there! And the Pirates won! In my 5ish years of Pirate fandom I have seen a handful of losses in person but only a couple wins, so to see them win on the road was pretty sweet.
You really only need to know a couple things about this game:
1. The Pirates had an offensive outburst (which is becoming more common of late - nice to see) in the 2nd inning where they scored 5 runs on 3 HRs. Solo shots by Martin and Marte, and a 3-run jack by Brandon Inge (??!!!?!?!!). Those balls were destroyed off of Joe Saunders, who fooled no one and was chased early. Those were all the runs we needed right there.
Marte himself had quite a night. Leading off the ballgame with a triple, and he would hit 2 HRs before the day was done.
2. Jeff Locke did that thing he does. 7 innings for Locke, 4 H, 2 ER, 4 Ks. Hurdle let him throw 104 pitches, which was a tad surprising. Not because Locke couldn't handle it but because Hurdle's seemed quite averse to stretching out his starters who are not named Burnett or Liriano.
It was a fun night to watch in person. I got to hang with a friend for a while, look around at the surprising amount of gold in the stands, listen to some dad next to me explain to his son that "baseball is a game of inches." SafeCo Field is pretty great too. Retractible roof was useful as the temperature was fine but it rained steadily in the evening.
26 June - Pirates 4 Mariners 2 - So you figure going up against Felix Hernandez that you have a good chance of losing, which wouldn't have been disheartening or anything but you would love to see the Pirates sweep this whole 5-game West Coast trip, right?
Well you got your wish. The Pirates managed to stay ahead or tied the whole game, turning a battle against King Felix into a battle of the bullpens (shark tanks? Apparently, when Mark Melancon was in Seattle he purchased a sign that says "Do Not Feed the Sharks"). Walker poked a 2-run HR. Mercer knocked in Pedro in the 9th to take the lead, and Melancon refused to relinquish it with a solid 9th, giving up only a pair of soft singles.
The Pirates have won 6 games in a row and are tied for the best record in baseball with the St. Louis Cardinals.
As I was heading to the game Tuesday night, a man saw my Pirates hat and walked up to me to say "You know you guys are never gonna catch the Cardinals, right?" To be friendly I said, "Yeah, but I can always hope for a wild card spot, right?" He laughed. Good guy. I hope he gets crushed to death or something.
On a serious note though the Pirates are playing really well. They're beating teams they should beat and they have a nice stretch coming up against subpar clubs. They could really put together a run going into the All-Star break. Now, I'm not saying they're gonna play even half as good as this for the rest of the year, but if they can continue to make hay against some of bottom of the barrel teams and can hang in there with the tough ones, they're gonna be a team that's tough to catch. And you never know, it could be the Cards looking up at the Bucs for a while this year.
The thing is, the Pirates are not gonna keep this up all year, they're getting just about all the breaks right now if you look at their pitching BABIP (lowest in the MLB). Let's just hope they can mitigate the upcoming regressions. The Cardinals are a better team at the moment than the Bucs, and the Bucs will probably end up closer to 85 than 95 wins. But there's always hope. Hope that the regression delays a little while, hope that Pirates are hitting their stride at just the right time. Cause you know, and inch makes all the difference in baseball.
No comments:
Post a Comment