Finally,a night to watch the Pirates!

I had a chance to watch the Pirates for a change in recent days and watched a controversial loss to the visiting St.Louis Cardinals by a 6-4 count at PNC Park.
Joel Hanrahan allowed two runs in the ninth (0-4) to pick up the loss.
The Pirates did get two longballs in the contest as Andrew McCutchen (23) and Derrek Lee (5) each reached the outfield seats.
The series ends tomorrow with the Cardinals at 12:35,so I am hoping to catch that one before the teams goes back on the road with a four game series in Los Angeles against the Dodgers.
At least I will get hear Vin Scully in that one as I'll bring the XM to work to listen to the series or at least the Thursday and Friday games as Saturday will depend on how the Ohio State game is going....

Pirate Hooks

1) The controversy begins in the fifth inning on a seemingly routine flyball to right fielder Lance Berkman by Derrek Lee.
Since everyone runs on Berkman,with one of the weaker arms in the league,the speedy Pedro Ciriaco scored with ease.
The Cardinals appealed and to my amazement won the appeal with Ciriaco being ruled out and ending the inning with some Clint Hurdle words for Sam Holbrook,the third base umpire.
Clearly a bad call as Ciriaco had his foot on the bag when Berkman caught the ball.

2) Later,when Hurdle or someone saw the replays,Hurdle went to Holbrook and informed him of the replay and that he really botched the call.
Hurdle was removed from the game almost as soon as the sentence left his mouth.

3) Holbrook again was the center of attention in the final stanza.
With Josh Harrison on second and pinch runner Chase D'arnaud on first,Pedro Ciriaco laid down a nice bunt considering that there was two strikes.
The ball was thrown to third to make a play on Harrison,who was called out to the dismay of Harrison,third base coach Nick Leyva and acting manager Jeff Banister,who protested the call.
This was a closer play than the earlier one and on replay looked to go either way,but the result was instead of bases loaded and no one out,second and first and one down.
Neil Walker then ended the game with a double play,but even on the twin killing.
That would have left the game 6-5 and the tying run on third,two down.

4) Nice to see Jared Hughes pitch in the bigs for the first time.
Hughes had made a few appearances with the Buccos,but this was the first that I had seen him pitch there.
Always nice to see good guys get a chance in the big time.
Jared pitched a scoreless seventh including a putout on Albert Pujols.

5) Garrett Jones added a baserunning miscue as he got caught up between first and second to end an inning and scoring threat.
Ryan Doumit faked a tag on a fly to you guessed it-Lance Berkman and Jones assumed the throw was going home.
Since Doumit was not going,the ball wasn't either and Jones was dead to rights.

6) The loss was number 81 on the season.
The Pirates must win every game to avoid the nineteenth losing season in a row.

Photo Credits
Hughes:Justin Allen-Getty Images
Harrison-AP Photo