The kind of bargaining that goes on when you’re the fan of a perpetually bad team is something that I’m not sure I could explain to someone that isn’t a Pirate fan. Tonight the Pirates never got anything going on offense and even though the bullpen made a heroic effort behind Ross Ohlendorf’s mediocre return start I found myself thinking, “Well, if we’re going to lose a one-run game I’m glad it’s tonight,” when Ronny Cedeno bounced into a 4-6 force out with runners on first and third and two outs in a one run game in the ninth inning.
That’s not to say that Bronson Arroyo should be dominating the Pirates the way he did tonight or anything like that. It’s just that a last at-bat win in this game would’ve felt like a borrowed win that would have had to be paid back to the universe in double (you know, if you believe in that sort of thing, which of course I always pretend like I don’t but then I’m still the guy that has the same game ritual and dinner before each Penguins’ playoff game and so help me god I’d be such a walking, quivering, superstitious mess should the Pirates ever make the playoffs again that I don’t even know how I’d function in real day-to-day life and so my public front that the baseball gods are nonexistent really must be just a front and nothing more) sometime in the near future.
By which I mean that I’m not happy that the Pirates lost tonight, per se, just that this game kind of had a doomed feeling from the start.
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