Dewey Dramatics

Ryan Doumit sure knows how to pick his spots. In the bottom of the tenth with two away, he drilled Takashi Saito's first pitch fastball over the Clemente wall, giving the Bucs a much needed 3-2 win. The liner was Doumit's first career walk-off long ball.

It was a see-saw game between two teams struggling to plate runs. Atlanta drew first blood when Yunel Escobar, aboard on a Ronny Cedeno error, scored after a pair of singles.

The Bucs took the lead when Andrew McCutchen led off the sixth with a triple, followed by a Garrett Jones walk. A Steve Pearce fly brought home McClutch, and a two-out Doumit single drove in Jones, who had stolen second. Dewey ended up with three hits to pace the offense.

The game was knotted in the eighth after Eric Hinske took Evan Meek deep, turning on a 96 MPH fast ball.

Both teams had chances, but ended up stranding twenty runners between them (the Pirates left 32 runners aboard in the three game set). The Buc infield was key, turning three DPs behind Zach Duke to help foil the Chop City gang.

Duke's line for the day was seven innings of seven hit ball; the only run against him was unearned. He struck out five and walked none. And as an added bonus, Aki Iwamura's back was lighter by one monkey this afternoon, after he ended an 0-for-34 streak by banging out a pair of hits, including a double.

The get-away day had big boys Jason Heyward and Chipper Jones resting for the Braves, while Andy LaRoche took a breather for Pittsburgh.

The Pirates travel to Cincinnati for a four game set. The opener will match Brian Burres with Adam Harang.

-- Doumit's dinger ended a streak of 63 straight innings at PNC without a homer for Pittsburgh.

-- Nate the Great was 1-for-5 this afternoon; he's now hitting .198 for the Braves.

-- The Pirate win ended a three game losing spell and broke the Braves' five game winning streak.

-- According to Mike McCall of MLB.com, Jack Splat is concerned that his hammies may be bringing his career to an end. On the DL again, he said "This is when you actually look at your career and if it's going to last too much longer," he said. "In reality, there's nothing more that I can do."

-- Carlos Zambrano's return to the Cubby rotation is bad news for Tom Gorzelanny. Ken Rosenthal, in a Fox Sport's vid, says Gorzo could be sent to the pen or dangled as trade bait, but thinks that's a losing move for Chicago.

-- On a down note, Jose Lima died of a massive heart attack at his California home early Sunday morning. He was just 37. Lima, a native of the Dominican Republic, pitched in the bigs for 13 seasons (1994-2006), and won 21 games for the Astros in 1999.