Be Like Tike

Jump to Comments

Upon arriving at PNC Park on Friday night, it quickly became obvious that this wouldn’t be a typical Friday night Pirate game.  Glancing at the stadium from across the river revealed gaping holes of people, while the Clemente Bridge was sparsely commuted, with maybe 50 people walking it at about 6:50.  The game was immediately postponed due to the threat of rain, but the Pirates and their fans helped make a potentially long night a somewhat entertaining one.

I probably should have realized that there would be problems when I was walking to my seat and, upon glancing at the North Shore Refreshment stands, realized that soft serve ice cream cones went up in price from $2.75 to $3.  It’s only a quarter, but it makes the ice cream go from being a decent discount to being another PNC Park-priced food.

After arriving at our seats, the introduction video began to play and a slight clenching began in my stomach.  This was not the same animated feature that greeted me upon entrance to so many games to PNC.  Instead, the screen featured a pirate who appeared as if he had just gotten done beating Super Mario up.  Then the video went on to the battle between the warships, only instead of simply launching cannonballs against the ships of every other team in the NL Central, the ships were launching honing missiles in the form of cannonballs.  The new and “improved” intro video is not nearly as cool as the classic animated video was.  They made a mistake by changing them (and by dumping Pirate Jukebox).

Onto the game.  Paul Maholm looked decent despite throwing a ton of pitches early on, managing to weave his way in and out of jams and always seeming to come out of them without surrendering a run, as he threw 5.1 shutout innings.  His counterpart, Edinson Volquez, had awesome stuff early on, routinely throwing the ball between 93 and 95 mph.  He appeared to tire a little bit later on, but was still effective.

For the Pirates, the major weaknesses came in the field, particularly in the second inning.  After one out, Paul Bako reached on an infield single that should have been an out, as Freddy Sanchez made a diving stop on the ball and then lopped it over to Adam LaRoche, who failed to make the catch and record the out.  That brought Volquez to the plate with the prime intention of laying down a bunt.  He did so, but it did not travel very far.  Catcher Ryan Doumit chose to attempt to get Bako at second base instead of Volquez at first.  His throw to Luis Rivas was strong and high, but definitely catchable.  Rivas just failed to make the play and Nyjer Morgan, attempting to cover the play in center field, slid over the ball, allowing Bako to move to third.

The Pirates then had to deal with runners on 1st and 3rd with one out, as opposed to having three outs and being out of the inning.  Norris Hopper then attempted to lay down a squeeze bunt, but popped up to LaRoche who just threw Bako out in the squeeze attempt.  The Pirates then looked confused, standing around the field and attempting to figure out whether there were two outs or three, so LaRoche retreated to first base and received a soft toss from a catcher to catch Volquez not tagging up from first base for what was, actually, the fourth out of the inning.  How do the Pirates expect themselves to be taken seriously if their players don’t even know how many outs there are?  Don’t answer that.

After the rain delay, Jason Bay launched his mammoth shot that put the Pirates ahead for good, as the Pirate bullpen came through with John Grabow, Damaso Marte and Matt Capps combining to keep the Reds off of the scoreboard.  The performance of the bullpen deserves some attention, particularly considering that this was the first 1-0 Pirate victory in more than a year.  The performances of Grabow, Marte, Capps, Phil Dumatrait and Tyler Yates have been particularly excellent of late.

The Pirates won tonight due to clutch performances and solid execution when it counted, which was impressive considering the awful weather and sloppy play that put them in the bad situations.  At least they managed to keep the magic number at 76.

Other interesting moments from the ballpark tonight include:

• Immediately after Petr Sykora scored his third goal, the whole entire stadium just broke out into a random chorus of cheers.  Those without earbuds just kind of looked around until they were informed of what had happened from those who were paying more attention to the Penguin radio feed instead of watching the game in front of them.
• Nate McLouth and Matt Capps are jerks.  Both admitted to not giving out candy on Halloween, even though McLouth seemed serious while Capps seemed like he was kidding.
• There were at least 14 blasts of lightning visible from PNC Park beginning in around the second inning and only stopping whenever a huge bolt struck pretty close to the stadium.  The umpires should have called this game much, much earlier instead of ignoring the obvious weather hazards around the stadium.  They put everyone in the stadium at risk, ignoring the obvious threat even as thunder sounded and should be reprimanded by someone in the league office for it.  Honestly, it took one of the closest blasts of lightning that I’ve ever seen for the players to finally leave the field of play, but that really should not have been an issue because everyone should have been huddled in the concourse and in the clubhouse, not on the field and in the stands.

Related Posts

• Pirates End of Season Notes
• It’s time to start doubting Huntington
• A change that the NHL needs to make