The Second Season

The Pirates of Penance returns after an All-Star break for the Buccin' Ear. The first "half" (90 games) of the Pirates' season is best forgotten, and some of their bad karma must have rubbed off on the National League at PNC Park, as the American League scored two times in the ninth inning to take the All-Star game again. It marked the first AL victory in a Pittsburgh park.

The Buccos returned to action with three games against the Washington Nationals, and won two, their first series victory in over a month. Zach Duke picked up a win in the series opener despite another mediocre effort (5 2/3 innings, three runs), then the team posted a rare come-from-behind win on Saturday. After stranding Nationals by the score throughout two games and most of a third, the pitching finally succumbed on Sunday in an 11-inning loss to thwart a sweep.

But there was more positive news tonight as Kip Wells worked out of several jams to go seven innings against the Colorado Rockies and help secure a 3-1 win. Wells didn't get the win, but he and the team were desperate for this kind of outing after a dreadful return from the disabled list.

None other than Freddie Sanchez drove in the winning run in the eighth tonight, further cementing his status as the team's most consistent performer and valuable player. Sanchez came up with one out and Jack Wilson on second against sidewinder Byung-Hyun Kim, who had thrown more than 120 pitches, and took a tailing pitch the opposite way for a run-scoring double. The Pirates tacked on one more before Matt Capps threw a hitless ninth for the save.

So the Pirates, still a discouraging 33-61, have won three of their first four "second season" games. Okay, it helps that they have taken on struggling teams (the Rockies lost their eighth straight tonight), but who is to quibble at this point?

Instead the Buccin' Ear, with a chance to see the game tonight, prefers to give a tip of the hat to Mr. Sanchez, who, as they say, plays the game the right way. He made several excellent plays in the field tonight, but for me the most impressive was in the ninth. The lead-off hitter for the Rockies, Choo Freeman, topped one down the third base line that appeared to be heading foul. Freeman, probably thinking just that, hesitated just a bit coming out of the box, and Sanchez, charging the ball aggressively all the way, grabbed it in fair territory and threw Freeman out. Those kinds of plays are why you keep an eye on a guy like Freddie all year long. His head is in the game all the time.

And the team continues to show those tantalizing flashes of talent. To wit: with one out in the top of the eighth and the Rockies' Todd Helton at first, the Rockies got a gapper from Garrett Atkins that seemed a cinch to score Helton. Jose Bautista fielded the ball cleanly and relayed to Jose Castillo, who threw a strike from short right field to Ronnie Paulino. Helton's hand was reaching for the plate just as Paulino swiped him on the shoulder for the out. It was a perfect play, and one that took advantage of Helton's ill-advised look back for the ball as he came around third. Your coach waved you home, man, forget about where the ball is.

If these plays come more frequently in the next two and a half months than they have thus far, perhaps the Pirates can salvage a bit of pride.

The 1985 watch: to better the fifth-worst mark in team history (57-104), the current club must go 25-43 (.368) the rest of the way.