Sorry for the delayed posting while I’m in PA this weekend; it’s been pretty much non-stop action for me all weekend and that’s not going to change until tomorrow.
I got in the car this afternoon for about a half-hour drive right as the game was starting. Before I even got to the gas station, the Pirates had hung three runs on Jason Marquis. Before I was halfway to my destination, Marquis had been chased and the Pirates had an 8-0 lead. The Pirates have been kind of shaky with huge leads this year — there was the Mets debacle and almost giving a big lead back to the Blue Jays last week — and so I kept checking the score on my phone this afternoon with trepidation, afraid that they were going to start giving the lead back. They never did, though, and they got an easy win to get back to two games above .500.
On offense, the Pirates absolutely laid it on the Nats today. Andrew McCutchen, Neil Walker, and Lyle Overbay had three hits, Alex Presley and Chase d’Arnaud each added two, and Mike McKenry picked up his first big league RBI with a bases loaded walk in the sixth. Kevin Correia turned in one of his better starts of the season (six strikeouts and just six hits in his six innings) to get his 11th win.
Once it became clear that the Pirates were going to hold on, I started checking other scores on my phone. Cardinals? Losing. Brewers? Losing. Scoreboard watching during a Fourth of July picnic … that’s a new activity for Pirate fans.
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