Final Score: Pirates 8 Braves 4
Why The Pirates Won: The Pirates simply out hit the Braves. In both the 3rd and the 5th innings the Pirates scored 3 runs on 4 hits. Bryan Reynolds who had a big night hit a 2 run home run to highlight the 3rd and Jack Suwinski singled in the 2nd run in the 5th, stole 2nd, which enabled him to score the 3rd run of the inning on the Ji Hwan Bae single with 2out. The Pirates took a 6-3 lead in the 5th and added a run in the 6th and 9th to win going away. Johan Oviedo pitched 4 innings giving up 3 runs on 9 hits and a walk. He was lucky that the damage was not worse. Oviedo pissed off Ronald Acuna Jr. when he pitched inside and almost hit Acuna about waist high. Acuna should have realized that Oviedo has no idea where the ball is going and probably couldn’t hit him even if he wanted too. The bullpen pitched 4 and 2/3 innings giving up only 1 run, on 3 hits, all given up by Carmen Mlodzinski. It was a shocking win by the Pirates, on par with the Miracle on Ice in the 1980 Olympics.
The Key Moment Of The Game: Going into the bottom of the 4th inning the Pirates held a 3-1 lead with Oviedo on the mound. The Braves got a single sandwiched between 2 outs. It looked like Oviedo might have an easier inning than the 3 previous ones. But it was not to be, as things went from bad to worse. Oviedo gave up 3 straight singles which tied the game 3-3. Then he promptly hit the next batter to load the bases. In comes Ryan (See, I’m Better Than U Thought I was) Borucki with the bases loaded and two outs to face Matt Olson. I could see the grand slam coming from a mile away. But Borucki got Olson to pop out to the shortstop and the Braves could only get those 2 runs in the inning. From that point on the Pirate bats got smokin hot, and scored the next 4 runs before the Braves added a run on Matt Olson’s home run in bottom of the 7th. The Pirates held them off the rest of the way.
Next Game: This afternoon, Braves in Atlanta. Luis Ortiz is pitching for the Pirates and I expect him to get racked and the Pirates to lose. Of course, I never thought they would win one game and they have. YAHOO!!!!!!!!!!! No matter what happens today the Atlanta series is a resounding success.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 