One night after Ross Ohlendorf shut down the Marlins bats, Jeff Karstens came out tonight and did the same thing, holding them to one run over six innings. That combined with one run in each of the first three innings from the offense was just enough for the bullpen to hold on to the lead and bring home the Pirates’ eighth win of the season.
I didn’t catch much of this one (I usually try to flip between the Pens and Pirates on nights like tonight when the Pens have playoff games, but I had a couple friends over tonight that were more interested in hockey, so we also spent time watching what I think had to be the first ever buzzer beater in an NHL playoff game … talk about an unreal finish), but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what was different for Karstens tonight when compared with his first start. Last week against Houston, he only got 47 of 87 pitches over the plate and walked five runners in four innings. Tonight, he threw 54 of 87 for strikes and only walked two in six. It looks like he changed speeds pretty well, and the Marlins just don’t seem to be able to handle that at all.
The only run I saw the Pirates score live was Freddy Sanchez’s home run when Anibal Sanchez couldn’t quite get his high fastball high enough to run it past Freddy and he crushed it in to the seats. I see that the LaRoches figured prominently in the other two runs which is good; they’re the two that I think need to pick up the slack for Doumit the most.
One final note: the game tomorrow is at 12:30, so don’t forget. I’m going to go write a gamethread to autopublish at 11:30 right now just in case.
