Nate McLouth took Chicago's Carlos Marmol deep into the famed Wrigley Field basket with one out in the ninth inning to lift the Pirates to a 7-6 win and their first win over the Cubs in their 8 meetings this season.
The homer was McLouth's 12th this year and took the shine off yet another great game by the Cubs Alfonso Soriano,who slammed two more homers among his five hits in yesterdays contest.
The Pirates scored the games first run on a second inning Brian Bixler single,but surrendered the lead with three Cub scores in the bottom of the same slate.
Doug Mientkiewicz's single in the fourth added a Pittsburgh run to cut the lead to 3-2,but Soriano
hit the first of his homers to move the Chicago lead back to two runs.
The Pirates scored three 5th inning run as they used singles by McLouth and Adam LaRoche to produce two runs and an Xavier Nady sac fly added the final run of the inning.
But Soriano's second blast of the game tied the game and drove Pirate starter Zach Duke to the showers with a no decision.
Duke allowed 4 runs and 8 hits while walking1 and fanned four over his stint of six and a third innings.
The games stayed the same until McLouth's homer in the ninth,but the Cubs did get within one one on a RBI single by who else-Alfonso Soriano.
Damaso Marte picked up the win after pitching a scoreless eighth and moved to 3-0 and Matt Capps earned his 10th save of the season,despite allowing a run in his one inning workload.
The series concludes today at 2:20 and the Pirates then get a day off before starting their next homestand on Tuesday against the Milwaukee Brewers.
Pitching Matchup
Pittsburgh:Phil Dumatrait (1-1 3.96 ERA) at Chicago:Jason Marquis (1-3 5.26 ERA) 2:20
Bullpen Notes
Great time last night at the Muni despite the rain filled final two innings for the Kannapolis Intimidators 6-4 win over the Hagerstown Suns.
The game was uninspired,but Battlin Bob and myself were joined by Mike from Bagofhealthandpolitics and lots of interesting talk that ranged from the future of Richmond baseball to Barack Obama's health care plan and even ranged to why the Suns management is all of a sudden being nice to me!.......
In case,Mike-you are more than welcome anytime!
I wish that I could say something nice about Hagerstown starter Brad Peacock.
He seems like a nice guy (I can hear Battlin Bob laughing now),but every time that we see him pitch,he get hammered all over the yard and trust me on this-Kannapolis is far from the best hitting I have seen.
Hittable pitches combined with walks and wild pitches are no way to go through life,son!
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has finally jumped on our bandwagon on moving the Pirates from the NL Central with no rivalries to a return to the NL East and more games with the hated Phillies.
More games in the East and fewer in the Central time zone makes more games for me to watch and trust me I cannot imagine any of the Central teams missing the Buccos much!
But it seems that Pirate President Frank Coonelly has not done very much leg work on a transfer,instead focusing his energy on making the Pirates interleague (yuck) rivals with the Cleveland Indians (oh NO).
I hate when the two play at all,let alone every year,
I equate those games to picking one of your children to win a game and therefore rooting for the other to lose.
I will be in Frederick,rain permitting, for the Keys game against the visiting Lynchburg Hillcats at 2,so tomorrow will have a report on the Hillcats and reports from the signing front.
Photo Credit
McLouth:Paul Beaty-AP Photo
2 comments:
Quite frankly, MLB blew its chance to realign in the 2004-05 offseason, when the Expos became the Nationals.
Who would have objected to a "trade" for Tampa Bay? Makes about as much sense as Milwaukee coming to the NL.
Had they been smart about that, the AL East could have been:
Baltimore
Boston
New York
Toronto
Washington
The NL East could have become:
New York
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Cincinnati
And a new division could have been born -- The NL South:
Atlanta
Florida
Tampa Bay
Houston
Since the NL fancies itself as a "purists' league," they could have sold it as a backlash against the Wild Card, noting that the previous three postseasons had seen wild-card teams win it all. With four 4-team divisions, they could claim that they'll be true playoff teams (never mind the 2005 Sad Diego Padres took the NL West with all of 82 wins, or that the St. Louis Cardinals won the 2006 NL Central with a losing intadivision record).
About the only folks that might have complained would be the Houston folks, who may have been denied a shot at the '05 WS if it had to beat out Atlanta, but who knows? After all, the Braves won 90 that year and the Astros won 89.
It was a fun game. Peacock is in over his head. They should've sent him down to extended a couple weeks ago. At this point, it's starting to damage his confidence. I hope he makes adjustments, he's a really nice guy. Everybody has slumps--heck I've had a three year slump--so I shouldn't be one to talk.
Post a Comment