The Pittsburgh Pirates choked a 3-0 lead,but then rallied on a Ronny Cedeno single in the tenth inning to lift the Pirates to a 4-3 win over the Dodgers.
Garrett Jones slammed a three run homer in the first inning (3) for the Pirates remaining runs.
Brendan Donnelly picked up the win (1-0) with a scoreless tenth.
The Pirates conclude their series with the Dodgers today at 12:35 before leaving for a weekend series in Arizona against the Diamondbacks.
Paul Maholm takes the ball for the Bucs in an attempt for the sweep while Los Angeles sends Chad Billingsley to the hill.
Pirate Hooks
1) It is way early,but Garrett Jones looks to be entrenching himself in the outfield.
After an impressive opposite field shot in the opener,he impresses again with a homer off lefty Clayton Kershaw.
That really gives me hope after watching Jones struggle against southpaws in 2009.
2) Despite not allowing the lead run in the ninth,Octavio Dotel's control issues worried me.
Dotel walked one,tosses a wild pitch that moved a runner to third and another askew pitch could have resulted in a play at the plate as it was bad enough that the runner could have went.
Keep an eye on this issue.....
3) The Pirates have to be preaching plate patience,which would be a great idea,as the team worked the Dodgers for nine walks on the evening,six of them from Clayton Kershaw.
Three of the nine were gathered by Andy LaRoche.
4) However,that doesn't apply to Delwyn Young,who pinch hit for Ross Ohlendorf in the fifth.
With the bases loaded,two away and Kershaw having walked two of the last three batters,it would appear that patience is in order.
Young's response?Swing at the first pitch,which looked to be a ball to me and popped up to the shortstop.
If Delwyn Young cannot be a productive pinch hitter,he shouldn't last long with the Bucs...
5) My lord,this was a long game for a ten inning outing.
Four hours on the dot.
Had I had to work,I would have been long gone before its ending.
Baseball has issues on game length that need to be addressed and the sooner the better...
I missed the first inning of the game to attend the Meet the Suns team party over at the Muni and with one small exception,along with one piece of bad news,everything was very well done.
The team charged two dollars to get in,all the players (except two on the roster) were available for autographs and you could then watch a team workout.
The Suns staff set things up down the third base line with players being three to a table and the tables being spread out a bit.
The alignment was very similar to their autograph day last season for signing the 2009 team set.
This was a super job of planning by the Suns as this enabled you to move from table to table to see players that you had things for and skip players that you had nothing for.
I always feel bad skipping guys,but not much one can do when you don't have cards for them.
All of the players were very personable and I talked a bit with a few that had been Suns in the past.
Only two of the roster players were not there as second baseman Jeff Kobernus was sick and pitcher Kyle Morrison was missing,but I didn't hear a reason for his absence.
Great job by the team in planning things out and refining the idea from last season.
The Suns now have automated tickets and as when any system is new there are always bugs to be worked out.
It was a bit slow getting tickets,so if you are planning to attend any of the Suns first handful of games,you might want to keep this in mind....
The bad news that the gates will open at 6:00 all season.
That is 35 minutes before games in April and May and an hour over the final three months of the season.
Previously,the gates opened an hour before all games.
I think that this is a mistake as I would think that I would rather be selling a water,hot dog etc to my customers than watching them stand in line outside the stadium,but that's just my opinion.
The main issue for myself is that that really reduces the time for signatures,making things a bit tougher.
Here is hoping that after a period of time that the Suns will reconsider their policy...
Back tomorrow with a two fisted combination of the Pirates finale' against the Dodgers and the Devils last regular season road game against the Florida Panthers...
Photo Credit-Gene Puskar-AP Photo
No comments:
Post a Comment