The Pittsburgh Pirates swept the San Francisco Giants leaving them both fuming and frustrated after a 5-4 Pirate win on Thursday afternoon.
The frustrated part has to be losing three games in a row to Pittsburgh.
The fuming is due to a borderline call to lead off the Pirate 7th when the leadoff batter and pinch hitter Nyjer Morgan was called safe at first on a "bang bang" call that was the starting point of a three run Pirate rally that would lead to the Pirate victory.
I thought the call could have went either way,but I can see why the Giants were upset as the wheels began to fly off from there.
Morgan would eventually score on a Nate McLouth sac fly and Freddy Sanchez would tie the game when he scored on Jason Bay's double.
Bay would score the eventual winning run on an Adam LaRoche single two batters later.
The Pirates scored the first two runs of the game in the third inning on a two run single by Ryan Doumit and kept the lead until the Giants batted again and scored all of their runs in the inning.
Paul Maholm continued his distressing trend of pitching 5 solid innings of a 6 inning term by allowing all 4 runs.
Maholm seems to do this often as all or most of the runs that he allows usually comes in just one inning,but today he was able to escape with a no decision thanks to the Pittsburgh offense.
The Pirate pen was shaky but unbroken as all of the three relievers that were used allowed runners,but none were allowed to score.
Franquelis Osoria's seventh inning was the lucky winner of the right place right time award to earn the win and improve to 2-1 and closer Matt Capps earned his 8th save of the season and second in as many nights.
The game was played through a steady rain that was bothersome,but never game threatening.
Both teams wanted to be sure to get the contest in as this was the only Giant visit to Pittsburgh this season and neither wanted to lose an off day later in the season,especially the Giants,who would have had flown in for one day.
The Pirates will attempt to keep things moving in a positive direction over the weekend as the Atlanta Braves come to town for a three game series.
After the game,the Pirates announced a deal with Cleveland to obtain veteran outfielder
Jason Michaels from the Wahoos for a player to be named later.
The Pirates also received cash to pay for much of the remainder of the contract that Michaels signed with Cleveland before the 2007 season.
Michaels has a 2.6 million team option for 2009,but it is unlikely that the Pirates would pick that up.
Michaels was hitting a meager .207 with 0 homers and 9 RBI this year with the Tribe,but could be a helpful 4th outfielder and pinch hitter with the Pirates as the Bucco bench is far from a strength.
I cannot believe that the Pirates will be sending a high level prospect to Cleveland,so the cost is light,but I do have one small fear on the deal.
I don't mind it,if Michaels is brought in as a backup outfielder/pinch hitter,but if the plan is that he could be the guy to step in and replace Jason Bay and /or Xavier Nady after the projected trades then I hate it.
Michaels has shown what he is and an everyday starter is not that.
Bullpen Notes
I had to watch the game on the Giants network since it was untelevised on the Pirates version,so got to listen to this gem from Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow.
"Once Ray Durham gets back this team will be far better and the improvement will be large".
Really?
Yes,Durham had a huge 2006 for his age,but his game dropped dramatically last season and I see no reason to see much improvement now at age 36.
And even at his peak,Durham was not the type of player to turn the Giant ship into contention.
A quick note to noted blowhard Lush Rimbaugh (spelling deliberate).
If you and your kind on the right are so correct about the status of this country being on the right track,then your silly "Operation Chaos" thing should not be needed,now should it?
Nyjer Morgan was sent down to AAA Indianapolis to make room for Jason Michaels.
Morgan was really only useful as a pinch runner and will get to play every day for the AAA version of the Tribe.
No word on the eventual trickledown of players that will affect Altoona,Lynchburg and likely Hickory.
Photo Credit
Capps:Gene Puskar-AP Photo
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