Who could have asked for more on this just completed Pirates road trip? Two series wins over the Hated Brewers and the first place Reds. The team now sits two games over .500 and two games out of first place.
The series with the Reds was a classic. In the first two games, teams with seemingly insurmountable leads were pushed to the brink and forced to use their closer to win the game while the go-ahead run was either at the plate or on deck. As for last night's rubber game, Joel Hanrahan suffers a rare blown save only to have the here-to-for invincible Aroldis Chapman give up his first earned run of the season at the hands of, no, not Andrew McCutchen and Neil Walker, but Clint Barmes and Mike McHenry. Then to watch Chris Resop nail it down after giving up a lead-off double to Joey Votto, and have Clint Hurdle go against the oldest precept in "the book" by intentionally walking the winning run, and nailing the final out by having Pirate killer Ryan Ludwick look at a called third strike to end the game. Wow.
If that series was played in October with a division series at stake, it would have been one for the books.
I don't want to get too out of control, and these Pirate are still a long, long way from being the '27 Yankees, but they do seem to be hitting the ball a little better and managing to score some runs over these past dozen games or so.
Marilyn and I have tickets for tonight's game with the Royals. With the success of the series in Cincy, and beautiful weather today, it will be disappointing if there is not a huge walk-up crowd at tonight's game.
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