Jason Bay continued his return to past form,which ironically could speed up his departure from Pittsburgh with two game winning hits in extra innings over the visiting Chicago Cubs.
On Saturday,Bay smacked a walkoff single down the left field line in the fourteenth inning to lift the Bucs to a 5-4 victory.
Earlier in the contest,Bay had hit his 12th homer of the season with one
on and finished with three runs batted in for the game.Extra innings were forced by Pittsburgh on a Luis Rivas sac fly that scored Doug Mienkiewicz in the ninth off Chicago closer Kerry Wood.
The other Pittsburgh run was scored on a 5th inning single by Jason Michaels.
John Grabow picked up the deserved victory to improve to 4-1 with three scoreless innings to lead a excellent outing from the bullpen,as four of the five pitchers used tossed scoreless stints,only Tyler Yates,who allowed three runs had a rough night.
Phil Dumatrait offered a solid outing(although not as great as Greg Brown thought) with one run over 5 and two thirds.
Brown kept referring to this "special" performance by Dumatrait and came off as fawning over the lefty in the manner that Rachel fawns over the Jonas Brothers.
If you don't know who the Jonas Brothers are-consider yourself lucky and move on.
Bay was the hero again yesterday with a 6-5 win that again ended with a extra inning game winning single-this time in the 11th inning to give Damaso Marte his fourth win without a loss.
Of course,Alfonso Soriano should have gotten at least a save for losing Nate McLouth's fly ball in the sun that should have been the game finisher and therefore a Chicago win.
Soriano homered earlier in the game and generally kills the Pirates,so I will
happily take one from him for a change.The Pirates hit solo homers in each of the first three innings and the shocker was that two of them were by Luis Rivas (I know!!!) to give him exactly two on the year to go with Xavier Nady's 8th of the season.
Although to be fair,the first homer by Rivas should have been a double as replays show the ball hit the top of the wall in left and then returned to the field of play and should have been treated as a live ball.
A Jose Bautista single scored the other run in the sixth inning and set the stage for Soriano's bungle and Bay's heroics and gave the Pirates two out of three in the series against the Cubs.
Paul Maholm continued his season of pitching passably with the exception of one poor inning as he allowed 5 runs in 8 innings,but 4 came in the Chicago third.
The Pirates are off Memorial Day and travel to Cincinnati on Tuesday for a three game series against the Reds at Great American Ballpark.
Bullpen Notes
Jack Wilson should return to the Pittsburgh lineup tomorrow against the Reds.
Look for Brian Bixler to return to AAA Indianapolis to make space on the roster for Wilson.
A VERY interesting interview in the Post-Gazette with Frank Coonelly and Neal Huntington on their philosophy on the draft and rebuilding the farm system.
Much of this sounds good,but the proof in the pudding,so to speak.
I do disagree with this statement by Coonelly on the passing on Matt Wieters.
"Let me start by saying I don't think it's very productive to engage in that. But my diligence has led me to believe that, one, the scouts we've retained, we like and think are productive members of the organization. Two, the decision was made by the former baseball operations department to take Danny Moskos over Matt Wieters. That was their decision."
Sorry,Frank-One that never remembers history is doomed to repeat it.
And you cannot expect to have this mess forgotten anytime soon,so let's not let cost ever allow something like that to happen again and use Matt Wieters as an example as what can happen when you either
A) pick players by signability or B) allow baseball people so inept to keep their jobs when they do not grade the best players as just that.
Reader Jason Christensen sends us a note on the Mets calling up former Hagerstown Sun
Nick Evans to the big leagues.
Evans had three hits in his MLB bow vs the Rockies.
After watching the Jr.Welterweight doubleheader from Great Britain,I cannot see anyone(aside from the Brits and Malignaggi family members) getting excited about the upcoming fight between the two winners.
Ricky Hatton looked just OK in his distance win over Juan Lazcano and IBF titlist Paulie Malignaggi barely escaped with his belt in a split decision win over Lovemore N'dou.
Malignaggi could not bust a paper bag filled with water and Hatton did not overly impress in his ring return from his loss to Floyd Mayweather.
Back tomorrow with something a bit different on what could be a slow news day.
Photo Credits
All Baseball:John Heller-AP Photo
Hatton-Lazcano:Carl De Souza:AFP/Getty Images
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