It’s always nice when the Pirates can bring a non-losing record in to the home opener, and they assured themselves of that today by walloping the Reds 10-2. The game was oddly blacked out for me so I didn’t see any of it, but it looks like it went just the way a typical Pirate win is going to go this year. Nate McLouth and Adam LaRoche homered, Ryan Doumit hit a grand slam, Nyjer Morgan found his way to the base three times, and Paul Maholm went seven solid innings, holding the Reds to just three hits.
I mean, really, this was a pretty solid win from start to finish. Four runs off of Johnny Cueto (who struck out nine, but hey, we’re gonna do that a bit this year), five off of former Bucco Mike Lincoln, and a non-disastrous outing from our own bullpen is a good recipe.
Of course, it wasn’t all good. Andy LaRoche went 0-for-5 (at least he didn’t strike out!) and Jesse Chavez didn’t pitch great in his inning, put that’s splitting hairs in a 10-2 win. One more win and they’re rolling in to the opener with a .667 winning percentage!
