The Pirates opened PNC Park this year back on April 13th with a 7-0 win over the Astros on the back of a Zach Duke shutout. They very nearly closed up the park today with a mirror performance; only an Orlando Hudson triple and a Chin-Lung Hu sac fly kept Duke from sealing today’s game up with a goose egg for the Dodgers.
The real story, though, was that Andy LaRoche absolutely went bananas against his old club, going 5-for-5 with two doubles, two homers, and six RBI, which gives him 5 homers and a 1.009 OPS in the month of September. He and Garrett Jones hit back to back homers in the fourth inning to really put the game out of reach and give the Pirates their first series win since taking two of three from Philly in PNC back in August.
The last month has been a brutal month to be a Pirate fan, so it’s great to see the club close up PNC with a series win over a playoff team. They’ve been a decent home team all year with the exception of September and the fans that managed to make it to these games over the weekend deserved to see some good baseball. Now if they could only find a way to go 4-3 over the next seven …
