CHRISTOPHER PANSINO – OVATHLETICS.COM
The Pirates brought everything they had in yesterday’s 6-5 win over the Giants. It was encouraging to see after the lackluster performance that the Pirates had in Monday’s blowout.
Garrett Jones would lead the charge as he had a great day, finishing 3-4 with a pair of RBI’s that would score Andrew McCutchen in both the first and eight innings to help the Pirates outlast the Giants 6-5.
But the game came down to more than just Garrett Jones as the Pirates got a good day all around from their batting order.
Akinori Iwamura had a solo home run in the third inning to help get a productive inning started.
McCutchen would get his second stolen base in the same inning and would eventually score on a Ryan Domit single to center field put the Pirates up 3-1.
Then in the top of the eight inning Giant’s shortstop Renteria dropped what could have been an inning ending double play ball. Instead the error would put men on first and second with one out.
The Pirates would make the Giants pay, as Jones would get his second RBI as his single to right field scored McCutchen putting the Pirates out to a 4-3 lead.
But the Bucs didn’t stop with just a one run lead. In the top of the ninth Andy LaRoche got his first homerun of the season with a solo shot to straight away center field.
Then Ryan Church would get a stand up triple on a deep shot to right center field before being driven in on an Iwamura single to put the Pirates up 6-3 going into the bottom half of the inning.
The Pirates also got good defensive play today, as the players seemed to give more effort than seen in the past two ball games. The top play came from pitcher Paul Maholm who in the third inning with a runner on base ran down a slow moving ball and using nothing more than his glove, flipped the ball to the first baseman for the out.
Maholm would get a quality start going five innings with 8 hits, 3 earned runs, 2 strikeouts, and 2 walks.
The Pirates would hold the Giants to just three runs until the bottom of the ninth when closer Octavio Dotel almost blew win, giving up a two run homer to Eugenio Velez making the game 6-5.
But Dotel didn’t even seemed fazed by the homerun as he went right back to business getting out the next three hitters to earn the save.
The Pirates get back to .500 with the win yesterday and will look to improve their record as Charlie Morton is scheduled to pitch later this afternoon.
