On Friday, I kept stealing glances at my phone during a rehearsal dinner. I saw the Pirates fall behind 5-2 early on with Kevin Correia on the mound and thought for sure that the Bucs were in big trouble. They homered their way out of trouble and by the time I got home, they’d put some runners on base for Andrew McCutchen to send an exclamation point out to deep left field to close out a 14-run, 19-hit barrage that was nice to see after nearly blowing two leads in Philadelphia.
On Saturday, I kept my phone off while my friends Scott and Kristin got married (checking baseball scores is not acceptable behavior for a grooman, I don’t think), but within seconds of stepping outside the church after the ceremony, one of my friend’s dad was waiting to tell me that Pedro Alvarez had hit a first-inning grand slam. That was enough for Jeff Karstens and the rest of the Bucs to ensure a series win in St. Louis.
On Sunday the Pirates’ rested Andrew McCutchen and they pulled Neil Walker early on a hot Sunday afternoon and they still came within a run of sweeping the Cardinals out of St. Louis, though some sloppy play and not enough timely hitting kept that from happening. Still, for a series that was quite a bit worried about on Friday, two wins and a lot of home runs and a strong pitching performance from Jeff Karstens makes this a pretty successful trip to St. Louis for the Pirates. I said on Monday that I wanted the Pirates to win four games on their Philly/St. Louis road trip and that’s exactly what they did. That’s a successful trip any way you cut it, even if it seems like two of the losses maybe could’ve been avoided.
