Snakebitten

At first,it looked like another in a line of bad outings by Tom Gorzelanny.
3 Arizona runs in the first inning and 2 walks appeared to put the Pirates in a tough ditch to dig out of considering that they were facing Dan Haren.
But Gorzelanny settled in and would not allow another run and that allowed the Buccos to battle back to tie the game at 3 and set the stage for a thrilling ending.
Sadly,the thrilling ending went the visitors way as Chris Snyder led off the Arizona 9th by depositing a John Grabow pitch (4-2) over the left field wall and leading Arizona to a 4-3 win.
The Pirates scored single runs in three consecutive innings to even the game using a 3rd inning double by Nate McLouth and solo homers by Jason Bay (14) and McLouth (14).
A very good outing by Gorzelanny considering his initial struggles and finished with a good seven inning effort allowing the three first inning runs on just 5 hits,but only struck out one Diamondback,which raises questions to me when you consider the rattlers strike out the most of any team in the league.
A heartbreaking loss for sure after battling back against one of the leagues best pitchers.
Game 3 is today with Battlin Bob's guy Phil Dumatrait on the hill.

Pitching Matchup
Arizona:Doug Davis (2-2 3.90 ERA) at Pittsburgh:Phil Dumatrait (2-3 3.47 ERA)

Great time was had last night at the Muni as Dan Lyons smacked a walkoff homer to give the Hagerstown Suns a 5-4 win over the Lake County Captains on Elizabeth Schulze bobblehead night.
The crowd was bigger than I expected,but it seems that it was more for the fireworks than the giveaway to me.
Battlin Bob had a great time looking for his new "pal" in the Suns front office and fellow blogger Mike was there with us as well swapping pol' talk along with the usual diamond talk.

Bullpen Notes

Kelly Pavlik retained his WBC Middleweight title with 3rd round TKO of Wales' Gary Lockett when Lockett's corner rushed the ring to toss in the towel to avoid their fighter further beating at the hands of Pavlik.
Pavlik dropped the Welshman twice in the second round and seemed to be on his way to more before the corner stopped the bout.

I have avoided the two title bouts from Showtime from Saturday,so look for my thoughts on those after I watch them tonight.

Our Belmont longshot Denis of Cork rallied to pick up second money in the Belmont where Big Brown failed in his effort for the Triple Crown.
Denis of Cork would have paid you 5.80 to place or 4.10 to show for every two dollar bet that would have been placed on him.
And as far as Big Brown goes-the horse should have never ran.
He was not healthy,but I can understand why they tried-you only get one shot at the Triple Crown.

Welcome to a new addition to our links page.
Sandlot Swashbucklers concentrates on the Indianapolis Indians and their boss Nancy Zinni takes her own terrific pictures of the I-Tribe.
Check it out on the links page.

And finally,here is the Pirates reasoning on the release of Brian Rogers from Kyle Stark,the Pirates director of player development.
"Ultimately, we did not see him as major league depth and wanted to give some other guys those innings."
To me,considering Rogers' numbers,something still is not quite right.

Until tomorrow.....

Photo Credits
McLouth:Gene Puskar-AP Photo
Pavlik:David Gard-AP Photo