It’s not really quantifiable, but certain games just have a fist-pumping, “Yesssss. Good win,” quality to them that others don’t have. For me it doesn’t necessarily have as much to do with a dramatic late hit as it does with the Pirates playing a good game but the outcome still being in doubt late, then managing to put it in the win column.
Tonight certainly qualifies under those specifications; they strung together a bunch of hits off of Mike Leake but just couldn’t mount any sort of offensive charge before the Reds actually opened the door for them in the eighth inning. That was when Drew Stubbs lost Aki Iwamura’s pop up and it fell for a triple, then Neil Walker doubled him home with his first hit of 2010 (of course, neither of them could manager to be on base for either of Andrew McCutchen’s hits earlier in the game and what good is batting your best hitter third when the guys in front of him don’t get on base? but that’s an entirely different story for a different day) to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead. That’s certainly getting things off on the right foot after his rough 17-game stint last year, though of course we should all be withholding any sort of judgment for a lot further down the road.
Of course, that one run was only important because Paul Maholm did what Paul Maholm does, which is shut down the Reds but shutting them out on six hits over seven innings. And that one run wasn’t enough because even good relievers give up runs sometimes and Joel Hanrahan served up a long homer to Brandon Phillips in the bottom of the eighth that spoiled an inning that was otherwise excellent for him. But the good news for the Pirates was that Phillips doing so allowed Ryan Doumit to bat in a tie game in the ninth inning. I don’t have the stats in front of me, but I estimate that Doumit’s go-ahead blast in the ninth was his 42nd clutch home run in 2010 (OK, maybe it was his fourth hugely clutch homer, I don’t need the stats to tell me that, really, because I actually remember all five of his homers this year [without peeking; against the Dodgers to seal the win on Opening Day, two off of Hoffman, the one against the Braves on Sunday and this one tonight], which tells me that the Pirates should maybe hit more home runs if I can remember every homer that a guy that’s tied for their team leader has hit). That was that because Octavio Dotel continued his excellent May by closing down the ninth inning.
So the game was well-pitched and generally well-played on the Pirates’ part with a key hit by Neil Walker in his first game after a call-up, plus a huge homer by Doumit in the ninth inning. Hard not to like a game like that.
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