Sometimes it’s best not to assign too much meaning to a game beyond this: the other pitcher was really, really good. Rick Porcello was against the Pirates this afternoon. It’s easy to wonder about Clint Hurdle’s questionable bunting strategy again (he bunted Ronny Cedeno to third with no outs and pinch hitter Xavier Paul at the plate in the sixth inning while behind two runs and with the top of the order looming), but even then the Pirates had runners on the corners with one out and failed to score. Jim Leyland left the door open just a crack for them in the ninth by pulling Porcello even though he hadn’t topped the 90-pitch mark, but after Paul and Andrew McCutchen reached base the Pirates’ mini-rally fizzled again and that was that.
Porcello was just awesome today and since other pitchers have awesome starts against Paul Maholm this year, I just don’t know if it’s worth wasting much time analyzing this one beyond that. The Pirates won the series against the Tigers and played some good baseball; they just hit a buzzsaw this afternoon. The key now is carrying the things that went right during that four-game winning streak over into the next couple series.
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