For 7 1/2 innings, everything about this baseball game drove me completely nuts. Between Clint Hurdle deciding to bench Neil Walker after an off-day for no discernible reason and his recent love affair with Xavier Paul, the Pirates’ starting lineup featured maybe four actual Major League players. The lack of depth on the club right now was obvious in the bottom of the fifth inning. Ronny Cedeno, who batted eighth tonight, lead the inning off with a double. With Kevin Correia scuffling badly, it was an obvious pinch-hitting situation. Hurdle elected to go with Pedro Ciriaco, who badly mangled his bunt attempt and ended up grounding out and swapping places with Cedeno. Jose Tabata followed by striking out looking, and then Josh Harrison grounded out to end the inning. The Pirates had the eight hitter lead off the inning with a double and even with a pinch-hitter, managed to have two outs made by borderline Major Leaguers.
After that and after Evan Meek allowed a homer to Chris Young to put the D’Backs up 5-3, I pretty much wrote the Pirates off for the rest of the night. I started sifting through draft picks for my full Day 2 recap, I even thought about shutting the game off entirely when Bob Walk starting ranting about how umpires are as important to baseball as players. I kept it on with the Diamondbacks grating announcers, though, and figured I’d press on through to the end.
I don’t know what happened in the eighth inning, exactly. It’s like the Pirates threw a switch and once it happened there was nothing the Diamondbacks could do. Garrett Jones and Jose Tabata both lasered doubles to pull the Bucs to within one, then Josh Harrison’s uncanny inability to strike out saved Clint Hurdle from bunt-induced ignominy with a two-strike single to tie the game up. Hurdle refused to give up on the bunt, though, and had Xavier Paul (batting third tonight, so help me Honus, how embarrassing) try to bunt Harrison to second. Harrison bailed Hurdle out again by hustling to second and beating the throw there. As a result, Andrew McCutchen’s four-pitch walk loaded the bases and Lyle Overbay’s double emptied them. Ten minutes after I was apoplectic about Hurdle trying to give outs away, the Pirates had scored five run. That built an insurmountable lead for Joel Hanrahan, who made the Diamondbacks look like they’d never even seen a baseball before with his 99 mph fastball and completely unfair slider.
This game is pretty much 2011 Pirate baseball to this point in little tidy package. I don’t know why it worked and I’m not certain that it should have, but it did and that eighth inning was a heck of a lot of fun. The Pirates are one game below .500 and facing Zach Duke tomorrow. What a season.
