Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Pirates take advantage of Orioles' error

For once, the Pirates were able to take advantage of another team's error en route to a 5-4 victory over Baltimore Wednesday afternoon at PNC Park.
The victory puts Pittsburgh back at .500 with a 37-37 record. The Bucs are off tomorrow before Boston comes to town Friday.
Down 4-3 in the fifth, Brandon Wood and Michael McHenry led off the inning with consecutive singles. A sacrifice bunt by pitcher Kevin Correia put runners on second and third with one out.
After Orioles pitcher Zach Britton (6-5) got Jose Tabata to strike out, Josh Harrison hit a line drive hard up the middle that should have been an easy play for Blake Davis.
Fortunately for the Bucs, the Baltimore second baseman had the ball roll through his legs and two runs scored for a 5-4 lead. Daivs was making his major league debut.
Correia held on to become the fourth NL pitcher to reach nine wins. Although, he has just two wins at home, and both have game against the American League.
Joel Hanrahan picked up his 20th save in as many opportunities.
Pittsburgh jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first, only to see it vanish after Baltimore picked up two each in the third and fourth innings.
The Pirates responded with one runin the fourth.
Neil Walker picked up his 50th RBI in Pittsburgh's 74th game on a groundout.
I have been impressed with Correia this season. Nothing flashy. He just gets the job done and has a pretty level head on his shoulders. I don't know why he's struggled at home, but I think it will all level out. He has the potential to be the Bucs first 15-game winner in a long time. I'm thinking Todd Richie in 1999 was the last.
Another strong performance by Hanrahan. I don't know if the closer role is overrated or not, but he has done a great job so far this season.
I will give it to the Bucs. Everytime I bash them, they find ways to win. Obviously, if they get swept by the Red Sox, we'll tear them a new a-hole.
As long as you're winning, nobody cares how you do it. If the bats can wake up, who knows.

1 comment:

  1. They've done a good job of taking advantage of the other teams errors this year. It's led to quite a few wins.

    Corriea reminds of ritchie. I have to give neil credit for bringing him in. Now if he trades him away...

    The only way i see this team collapsing at this point is if they trade maholm and corriea away for prospects. their pitching is just to damn good. I think they'll give the sox a run for their money and take at least one game if not two. the stadium will be packed (albeit half of them will be sox fans) and rocking. I'm not doing anything this weekend except slow cooking some ribs and watching baseball, can't wait!

    Go Bucs!!

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