This game was a lot of things — another bad break for Ross Ohlendorf, a big night for Garrett Jones, a solid game from Andrew McCutchen all over the field, a second straight road win for the first time since May 15th — but mostly it was a great night for the bullpen. After Ross Ohlendorf came out of the game in the first inning, Sean Gallagher, Wil Ledezma, Javier Lopez, DJ Carrasco, Joel Hanrahan, and Octavio Dotel held the Rockies to just one run in 8 1/3 innings. Perhaps most impressive is that only Hanrahan was on the Pirates’ roster at all last year and even he was acquired mid-season. Gallagher and Ledezma took Ohlendorf’s short start and built a bridge through the fifth inning and neither one of them was even in a Pirate uniform as recently as the Fourth of July.
It’s important to mention Jones for his performance tonight, too. On July 1st I wrote about his first year in a Pirate uniform and how my opinion of him was starting to shift in a positive direction. Then he went out and hit .221/.244/.337 with just two homers in his first 21 games this month. He went a bit under the radar because no one was hitting before the break and the young guys started killing it after, but Jones really has been awful tonight. He managed to double that monthly homer total tonight, so hopefully he’s starting to come out of his summer swoon.
Within about 20 minutes of tonight’s first pitch, this game had the potential to be rough. Ohlendorf was out of the game and headed to the hospital with no one knew how serious of a head injury, the Rockies had a 1-0 lead, and we were staring down the barrel of several innings of Sean Gallagher and Wil Ledezma. And now a few hours later the Pirates are on a two-game road winning streak, Ohlendorf somehow made it back into the dugout for the post-game handshake, Garrett Jones’ bat is alive, and I’m looking at the Pirates’ bullpen wondering if Neal Huntington is some kind of bullpen building wizard. All told, not a bad night.
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