Friday, October 1, 2010

Bucs Reel In Fish

The Bucs went down in order; the two-out blues hit D-Mac early tonight. After getting the first two Fish routinely, a Logan Morrison triple and a bloop to center by Dan Uggla put Florida up 1-0.

The Bucs evened the score in a heartbeat; the en fuego Pedro led off with a homer off Adalberto Mendez, his sixteenth. The Fish tried hard to retake the lead; a pair of singles and walk loaded the sacks for Osvaldo Martinez, but Dan McCutchen got him to pop out to 1B John Bowker.

Pittsburgh went down in order in the third, the Marlins got one man aboard on a Pedro boot.

Neil Walker singled and Bowker walked in the fourth, but with two outs, Brandon Moss ended the inning with a liner to right. McCutchen gave up a leadoff knock, then retired the next trio.

His K of Brad Davis was the 1,000th of the season for the Bucco pitchers, the 10th time in franchise history that the staff has reached that mark and the first time since 2006.

The Bucs took the lead when Cedeno led off with an infield single and Chris Snyder went long. JR yanked D-Mac for a pitch-hitter; he hasn't started for awhile, but was sitting at just 53 pitches and needed another inning for the decision. McCutchen gave up five hits, a run, and K'ed a pair in four frames. The Bucs were up 3-1.

The reason for D-Mac's quick hook quickly became obvious. Chan Ho Park took the hill, striking out the side. JR's game is to get Park the Asian victory title tonight; he's tied for the record with 123 W's; nice move on the beleaguered manager's part. Maybe Pittsburgh does want to resign Park in 2011.

Even Pedro's dinks fall in; with one out, he dropped a soft fly single into center. Bowker singled him to second, and Moss' rope to center scored El Toro and sent JB to third. Enough for Mendez; Brad Badenhop came on. Cedeno greeted him with an RBI knock. Snyder ended the frame when he smacked a 2-0 heater to short for a 6-4-3 DP, but it was 5-1, Pirates.

Park did his thing, retiring the Fish in order and ringing up another K.

Park led off the seventh with a fly out; McCutch got it going with a single; JT followed with a ground ball single. A Walker knock loaded the bases for Pedro; he K'ed swinging, followed by a Bowker bouncer to the pitcher. Park again put the Fish away cleanly, adding two more K's to his stat sheet.

Steve Cishek took the ball for Florida and got Pittsburgh 1-2-3. Evan Meek took over from Park, who in three innings pitched perfect ball with 6 K's. Osvaldo Martinez started off with a double, and Logan Morrison got ahead 3-0, but Meek came back to get him on a tapper to the hill. Uggla popped out, and Meek lost Sanchez on a 3-2 pitch after being up 1-2 on him, but he finished off Chad Tracy with a bouncer to Walker. Three outs to go.

McCutch doubled with one away, but was stranded at third. Joel Hanrahan go the ball in the ninth. He retired all three Fish, two on K's.

Good night for the Bucs; they played a fairly clean game in the field, got good pitching (Park got the W, his 124th, so he is the #1 Asian-born pitcher in that category), and the offense put up some tallies - all on the road, yet! Two games to go before we put 2010 to sleep.

Charlie Morton will face Alex Sanabia tomorrow night.

-- Garrett Jones got the night off; John Bowker went to first and Brandon Moss played right.

-- Pedro stretched his hitting streak to eleven games; JT's is now at fourteen.

-- Brian O'Neill of the Post Gazette reports that the long-lost tape of the Pirates' seventh game victory over the Yankees in 1960 will debut at a Pittsburgh moviehouse in November with a who's who cast of guests.

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