Woe is he who tries to divine meaning from early season results. Against the Dodgers, this young Pirate team drew an impressive amount of walks. Against Rodrigo Lopez, they couldn’t do anything right. Against Dan Haren last night, they were all or nothing. Haren whiffed nine Pirates in his 6 2/3 innings and walked just two, but gave up homers to Akinori Iwamura and Jeff Clement (and neither one was cheap) along with an RBI double to Ronny Cedeno and six other Pirate hits that brought in six runs (five earned) against the ace.
That was more than enough for Zach Duke, who turned in a very nice seven inning start in which he induced 14 ground ball outs against just two flyouts and only allowed four hits. Besides Jack Taschner getting into a bit of trouble in the eighth, the bullpen held the lead nicely with Brendan Donnelly and Javier Lopez bailing Taschner out and Octavio Dotel slamming the door in a 1-2-3 ninth that required just 11 pitches.
How does a team that can barely touch Rodrigo Lopez crush the ball against Dan Haren? I can’t say that I really have any idea, which is why figuring out a team’s personality early in the year can be so difficult. A day ago, this group seemed ready to take the seasonal nosedive earlier than normal. Fourteen hours from now, they take the field with a chance to win their second straight series to open the season.
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