So, one night after one of the weirdest baseball games you’ll ever see anywhere, the Pirates and Giants had a pitcher’s duel that ended when a manager’s challenge gave Starling Marte home plate on a triple + error in the bottom of the ninth. OK.
The good news for the Pirates tonight is that Charlie Morton looked quite a bit like last year’s Charlie Morton. His fastball velocity was up to around where it was last year, he got a bunch of groundouts, and he even threw nine of the mythical Charlie Morton Changeups tonight. I feel like I say this pretty much daily, but, yeah, the Pirates need more of this Charlie Morton.
Instead of closing by pointing out that the Pirates still can’t figure out how to hit and pitch simultaneously or that the bullpen still hasn’t held a lead in over a week and say that the Pirates are somehow now just one win away from winning back-to-back series. I guess that’s progress?