The Pirates jumped on Brewers starter Mike Fiers early with Andrew McCutchen’s two-out solo homerun in the top of the 1st inning.  Jeff Locke pitched a scoreless bottom of the 1st before the Pirates’ offense attacked again.  With one out, Neil Walker singled to right.  Pedro then followed with his first homerun of the day, giving the Pirates an early comfortable 3-0 lead.

Starling Marte led off the 3rd inning by reaching on an error, stealing second base, and advancing to third on another error.  Unfortunately, he was left at third base after two strikeouts and a flyout.  That’s OK, though, the Pirates came right back in the 4th.  Neil Walker came to bat with one out and homered to center, making the score 4-0.

There isn’t much to say about the Brewers’ offense through the first 6 innings.  Locke pitched all of those and gave up just 3 hits and 3 walks, zero runs, as he struck out 7 Brewers.  ”Doesn’t surprise me,” Pedro said.  ”He’s been pitching really well.  For as long as I’ve played with him, that’s what he’s done.  He did a great job today of coming after guys and using his defense.”  Locke said he didn’t think about the Pirates’ Miller Park statistics; he just approached this start as he would approach any other.

Justin Wilson came in to pitch the 7th inning, and I guess he remembered he was at Miller Park.  He gave up a homerun to Carlos Gomez, the first batter he faced.  It was the first homerun Wilson has given up in his Major League career.  He settled right down after that though, getting two quick outs and striking out pinch-hitter Jeff Bianchi to end the inning.  Mark Melancon pitched a perfect 8th inning, striking out Ryan Braun to end that one.

Fiers lasted just four innings, and the Brewers used the combination of Tom Gorzelanny, Burke Badenhop, and John Axford to throw four scoreless innings of relief before Alfredo Figaro took over in the 9th inning.  Pedro Alvarez led off the 9th and hammered another ball to right for his second homerun of the game.  Viewers at home didn’t see the ball land.  ”That’s what always gets you fired up about Pedro, the ability to shrink a ballpark,” Clint Hurdle said.

“Sometimes it gives you confidence that all you gotta do is put a good swing on the ball,” Pedro said.

Tony Watson pitched the 9th and gave up one run on a two-out homer by Gomez, his second homerun of the game.  Watson then got Rickie Weeks to fly out to center field, and the game was over.

The Pirates earned a rare win in Miller Park with a few homeruns and some beautiful pitching.  Tomorrow is the rubber match of the series.  Yes, a rubber match at Miller Park.  Wandy Rodriguez (5-2, 3.40 ERA) will start for the Bucs and face Yovano Gallardo (3-4, 4.50 ERA).

I’m not sure it matter who pitches or anything.  Burnett pitched great but to no avail.

What will Jeff Locke have to do tonight to win?  A complete game shutout?  Probably not.  He’ll have to hit a homer too.

But that sort of thing only happens to the Pirates at Miller Park, right Yovani Gallardo?

Locke is really pushing All Star appearance at this point.

He’s kind of defying the odds with all the walks, but ride it as long as you can and just improve on them.

Three quality starts in a row, including a Pirate victory against the hated Brewers.

You quite literally couldn’t ask for more from Locke.

Hopefully this outing goes longer than his only other at Miller Park.

Good luck kid!

If the Pirates have one thing going for them it’s the fact they are facing Mike Fiers. Fiers is basically garbage so far this season and has given up about a million homers. They should tee off.

It’ll be Fiers second start of the season, his first in seven games. Twice in that span he has faced the Pirates, with mixed results.

Last year the Pirates somehow kicked the ass off Fiers.

They really burned Fiers, eh? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

First Pitch: 4:10 PM EST
Where To Watch: Root Sports, MLB.TV, FSWI

AJ Burnett wasn’t bad either, only allowing three hits over his seven innings of work.  Unfortunately, they came at the right time to give the Brewers their 2 runs.  After a perfect first inning, AJ walked Aramis Ramirez to lead off the second inning.  Carlos Gomez followed up with a double, and two batters later, another double by Alex Gonzalez scored Ramirez and Gomez.  AJ got 2 quick outs after that to end the inning and any threat of further damage.

The multi-talented Brandon Inge plays hockey too.

The Pirates’ first hit came in the 5th inning with 2 outs, a Neil Walker single on a fly ball to Ryan Braun (0-for-4, 2 strikeouts).  Brandon Inge came to bat next and hit a hard line drive – but right at the pitcher to end the inning.  Although Inge didn’t do much with his bat tonight, his glove was another story.  He had a few nice plays, showing off his range and ability to play several positions (tonight was third base).  Oh, and he also plays hockey.  Another 2-out hit came in the 6th inning, a triple by Starling Marte that was wasted when Travis Snider struck out to end the inning.

In the seventh inning, the Pirates were a bit more successful.  With one out, Gaby Sanchez singled to right.  Russell Martin grounded to the shortstop, and Gaby was forced out at 2nd base but Martin ended up safe at 1st base.  Walker then came through with his second hit of the game, a double to center field that scored Martin and cut the Brewers’ lead to 2-1.  Inge grounded out to end the inning.

Brewers starter Marco Estrada was done after seven innings, having given up one run on 4 hits and 8 strikeouts.  The Brewers used a combination of four relievers to limit the Pirates to just two more baserunners on a walk and a hit.  Closer Jim Henderson left the game with 2 outs in the 9th inning with what looked to be a hamstring injury.  I never like to see a player hurt (even most of the Brewers), but this could be good news for the Buccos if he’s out for the rest of the series, since he’s boasting a 0.92 ERA.  Francisco Rodriguez earned the save, his first of the year, by getting Neil Walker to ground out for the final out of the game.

AJ struck out 6 batters in seven innings, and Bryan Morris pitched the 8th inning, allowing just 1 hit.

The good news is that the Pirates didn’t get completely demolished.  And that they’re still in third place with a 29-19 record while the Brewers improved to just 19 and 27.  And that there’s a fresh game tomorrow.  Unfortunately, it’s still in Miller Park.

Jeff Locke (4-1, 2.73 ERA) starts for the Pirates, and Mike Fiers (1-2, 5.93 ERA).  Once again, the numbers are in the Pirates’ favors.  Now to pretend they’re not in Miller Park.

Good defense, good pitching, few timely hits and the Pirates are magically 11 games over .500.  They are also now just ten wins away from becoming the seventh team to win 10,000 games.

Looks like that feat will likely come on the road though.  They’d have to win ten straight to do it at home, or go on a massive losing streak.

A potentially great night of Pittsburgh sports is in store.  Penguins can eliminate the Senators tonight, Pirates trying to exercise their Miller Park demons.  Life is so much more fun when these guys are good.

Taking the hill tonight for the Bucs is team leader/ace/psychopath A.J. Burnett.

Once again A.J. Burnett had a fantastic outing.  Once again the Pirates lost it.    The Pirates have now lost three straight A.J. Burnett outings, each one saw him pitch seven innings.  while the Pirates scored a total of four runs.  The Pirates have scored 26 runs thus far in games when A.J. pitches, 2.6 runs per game.

Burnett has to pitch perfect to win games for the Pirates so far.  In his last five he has an ERA of 2.38 and opponents are hitting just .200 against him.

As you can see, one of those three straight losses came against the Brewers a team he has never had success against. Burnett is 2-5 with a 4.87 ERA in ten career starts against the Brewers.

In case you were wondering this game is a…….

Apparently Marco Estrada is going to face the Pirates in every series this season. He had an awesome outing last time out, then went right back to being a turd. He’s been a turd most of the time this season.

Alas though, the Brewers are undefeated when Estrada starts against the Bucs.

5.44 ERA? 1.422 WHIP? 1.9 HR/9? The Pirates need to light this bum up today.

Sadly they haven’t been able to do that in the past.

51 SO to 5 BB? WTF guys?

First Pitch:  8:10 PM EST

Where To Watch:  Root Sports, MLB.TV, FSWI

Anyone want to be in my preview?Just say something vaguely baseballish.

— Rich (@shamtown) May 23, 2013

What I didn’t count on was the type of people that follow me and are also awake at 2 AM.

Poor execution on my part.

I can’t embed protected accounts but @WhattJess said ” Go Brew Crew!” and “Brew Crew! Brew Crew! Brew Crew!”.

That was actually mild though.

@shamtown go fuck yourself with a baseball

— Brad(@laclips) May 23, 2013

@shamtown I hope you have to pass a baseball through your urethra. — Jon Stine (@jay_stint) May 23, 2013

@shamtown McCutchen will start and play center field — Mike Wagner (@mjwst31) May 23, 2013

@shamtown Barmes will troll everyone with a walk off HBP except he will never make it to first, Marmol hits him in the head #FreeMercer — Mike Wagner (@mjwst31) May 23, 2013

@shamtown I like baseball. — British Meg (@lvallana) May 23, 2013

@shamtown (insert baseball stuff here) — Zack (@CptnZackSparrow) May 23, 2013

@shamtown Clint Barmes is a winner.

— Zack D’Ulisse (@740JZD) May 23, 2013

@shamtown Jeanmar Gomez will pitch a perfect game today.

— Zack D’Ulisse (@740JZD) May 23, 2013

Maybe next time I’ll try that in the afternoon.

For some reason the idiot Cubs seem to always play games at ridiculous, inconvenient times.  Apparently if you go to PNC Park tomorrow the Trib will load your ticket with five bucks to buy food with.  Enjoy your five dollar ketchup packet.

There was a bit of a rumble on the 17th.  Did you feel it?  It was faint.  It made a slight crack though.  A crack in the rotation.  I’ve made it pretty clear how I feel about Jeanmar Gomez, especially as a starter.  Get what you can, but don’t expect much more than the Pirates have squeezed out of him.  Don’t get attached to him because he’s fungible.

I think we saw that in his last outing.

Gomez is a guy they don’t trust to throw much more than 65-70 pitches. That kills a bullpen. It also says a lot about his potential. He’s a reliever. At best.

I want to say it’s too early for this.

But his career numbers pretty clearly point out this trend, even as a reliever.

He has never faced the Cubs though. Maybe that unfamiliarity will lead to a few quick innings so he can get in some work without cycling through the order.

Edwin Jackson is having a dumpy year. I really wanted the Pirates to make a run at him. Would we consider this a “same old Pirates” deal if he signed with Pittsburgh and struggled? He was a pretty hot commodity. It just goes to show you, this sort of thing happens to every team.

The Pirates beat Jackson in his first outing of the season and he has posted just three quality starts in his nine games.

He had five QS in his first nine games last season, including 7.0 innings of three hit two run ball. Both of those runs were scored on homers (Andrew McCutchen, Garrett Jones).

Rod Barajas even managed to homer in that game.

That would be his only start against the Bucs in 2012. It would also be the only L the Pirates have given him in seven starts.

First Pitch:  12:35 PM EST

Where To Watch:  Root Sports, MLB.TV, CSN

My new found ability to type correctly isn’t the only good thing about this game. The way game three ended triggered the typical hockey fan reaction. Analysis turned to criticism. Criticism turned to speculation. And speculation turned into panic. Yes, losing this game would have been pretty awful considering the fact that the Penguins have dominated the play for the most part. But that same logic is exactly why being worried about this game was unnecessary.

The two players that had the biggest games for the Penguins in their 7-3 rout of the Ottawa Senators in game four were two of the most important players to have such games. Despite being in the top ten in playoff points, Jarome Iginla had yet to score a goal before he had two shots find the back of the net in this one. The other guy that needed a big game was James Neal. Up until this point of the series, he was arguably the worst player on the ice. Tonight, he was the best one. Nine shots on goal and two goals including the first goal of the game for the Penguins which tied the game at one in the first period.

The Pens scored a lot in this game and they did it in bunches. Outside of the two goals by Neal, the other five goals came in a total span of two minutes and 35 seconds. Chris Kunitz and Iginla scored 40 seconds apart which were the only two goals of the second period and gave the Penguins a 3-2 lead that they would never look back from. Pascal Dupuis, Sidney Crosby, and Iginla’s second goal came in a 1:45 span in the middle of the third period to put the Sens out of their misery.

Tomas Vokoun made 30 saves in the win after rebounding from a shaky first period. The Sens had 11 shots on goal in each of the three periods in this game. Two of the first period shots, one coming shorthanded from Milan Michalek and the other from Kyle Turris, were put past Vokoun. After that, Vokoun shut the door and did not let in another goal until the Pens had a 7-2 lead. Daniel Alfredsson was the one to score the final goal for the Sens on the power play which was his 100th career playoff point.

There were a few changes in the Penguins lineup as compared to game three. The pointless Tanner Glass experiment was justifiably ended quickly. Brenden Morrow was also taken out of the lineup due to his poor performance to this point in the playoffs. Beau Bennett made his return and was a +1 with two shots on goal in 10:54 of ice time. Jussi Jokinen made his first appearance of this series. He picked up an assist and two shots on goal in 12:11 of ice time. Logic points to both of them being in the lineup again on Friday.

The good news going into Friday is that the Penguins have a chance to finish off this series with relative ease. The bad news is that they aren’t too fond of winning playoff series at home. The last playoff series that the Penguins won at home was the 2008 Eastern Conference Finals against the Philadelphia Flyers. Sure, beating Ottawa won’t be quite as fun as Philadelphia but it is just as necessary.

That’s why you should read TiGO every day!

Many people have been very impressed with Francisco Liriano as a Pirate.  How can you argue?  He’s 2-0 with a 1.64 ERA.

Problems are on the horizon though.  He isn’t going deep into games.

In addition to that his WHIP is 1.545 which is almost exactly his career worst. That doesn’t portend well for a guy that is vastly overachieving in the strikeout department. Those strikeouts will turn into contact outs.

Reason for optimism though is his BAbip so far this season, which sits at an astounding .429. That’s going to come down, maybe even .100 points.

Therein lies another problem though. The strikeouts will decrease. The BAbip will decrease. That doesn’t mean that he will stop giving up so many hits though, he’ll just start getting more outs in the field as opposed to at the plate, thus lowering his BAbip but not necessarily lowering his H/9 or WHIP nearly as much.

This is all an extremely small sample size. Something to keep in mind.

Cubs beat Liriano last season in his first and only game against them.

It might not matter what Liriano does. In the end the Pirates have to beat Jeff Samardzija.

We all know what the Golden Domer does to the Pirates. Hell he did it on Opening Day.

Two wins this season. Of course one of them is against the Pirates. Be honest though, he certainly hasn’t pitched badly.

Again it doesn’t matter. He’s a whole different animal against the Pirates.

Only way to go is up for the Pirates.

First Pitch: 7:05 PM EST
Where To Watch: Root Sports, MLB.TV, WGN

That’s the great thing about blogging.  Such fluid deadlines.

Another great thing about blogging is that I can interject any personal feelings I want to into my posts.  I can mention whatever I want.

I say that because there is no witty segue into what I’m going to post right now.  It has nothing to do with sports, but it’s important to me.  Please click here.   That will take you to a page for someone trying to raise money for their brother’s cancer treatment.  He is a friend.  If you can help it would be greatly appreciated.  A dollar, five dollars.  Literally no amount is too small.

Now that I’ve potentially saddened you it’s time for baseball talk.

Wandy Rodriguez brings a sterling 4-2 record and solid 3.25 ERA into this matchup with the Cubs.   Surprisingly Wandy is just 8-7 in 23 career starts against the Cubs.

Since getting crushed by Milwaukee on April 29th Wandy has gone on a nice little Quality Start streak, three straight games now, with the best being his last game, the revenge outing against Milwaukee.

The Pirates have pretty quietly gone 6-2 when Wandy starts.

A bit of concern though. Wandy has allowed eight homers in his last five games. He has given up at least one homer in all five of those games after not allowing one in his first three.

Something to keep an eye on.

W-Rod pitched well against the Cubs last season:

All three were quality starts, two of which lasted seven innings.

Matt Garza is scheduled to make his season debut against the Bucs tonight. This will be Garza’s first start since July 21st last year and is on an 85-90 pitch limit. That would come out to around six innings going after last year’s numbers.

That’ll be key for this one. Get his pitch count up early and work on the Cubs bullpen. The Cubs bullpen currently ranks 23rd in ERA, 23rd in BA, 19th in WHIP, and 24th in OPS with a .739 against. It’s a weak spot, though the Cubs will get a bit of a boost in the pen by moving Carlos Villanueva to the pen. Garza is taking his spot after all.

Garza only faced the Bucs once last year but that was enough for him. He gave up five earned (six total) over five innings, allowing three homers (Andrew McCutchen, Pedro Alvarez, Garrett Jones).

That was the first time the Pirates ever gave Garza the big L. He is 1-1 in three starts with a 3.79 ERA lifetime.

First Pitch: 7:05 PM EST
Where To Watch: Root Sports, MLB.TV, CSN

This game didn’t end so happily. Colin Greening scored 7:39 into the second overtime for his third goal in as many games. It was a dirty goal and it was the perfect goal to win this type of game.

The two teams combined for eight power plays and 98 shots. Only three of them found their way into the net. And that’s even more than what there should have been. Tyler Kennedy scored what for most of the game appeared would be the only goal of the game late in the second period. That goal stood up through the entire third period. It looked like a guarantee when Matt Cooke drew a penalty on Erik Karlsson with less than two minutes remaining.

Now I know the Penguins were on the power play. But another goal was not necessary. They had the lead. They should have almost treated it more like a penalty kill instead of a power play at least in terms of personnel. They chose not to play it that way. The Sens were able to maintain possession into the neutral zone and pull their goalie. Milan Michalek found Daniel Alfredsson streaking to the front of the net and fed him a perfect pass that he chipped past Vokoun with 29 seconds left in regulation to force overtime.

The first overtime went scoreless despite a combined 27 shots in the period. The buzzer sounded and like I stated, the multiple overtime thoughts started entering my mind. This one is for those of you that knew what shape a hockey puck was prior to 2005.

This game would not add to the nostalgia. This game would end in disappointment. This game would get the Ottawa Senators back into the series. But only technically. Yes, Craig Anderson gained some confidence in this game. That’s really the only thing to be concerned about. The Senators are still over-matched. I picked the Pens to win this series in five games. That means the Sens had to win one. This was their one.

It reminds me too much of last year when the Pirates were amazing against the challenging part of their schedule but fell apart once it let up.

Now it comes down to the Ice Truck Killer himself, Jeff Locke to win the series.  We’ve been over it a bunch now but I’m a Locke fan.  His last outing was not spectacular but he did something very important.  He only walked one batter.

That start was his fourth quality start in five games.

You can call him the Master Locke.

Jeffy was 0-2 against the Astros last season but he struck out 14 batters in just ten innings of work! Very uncharacteristic.

You can strike out as many as you want though and it won’t matter if you give up eight runs over ten innings.

Lucas Harrell is right up there in the “Holy Crap I Make A Ton Of Starts” Club with A.J. Burnett. Harrell hasn’t had quite the success though.

In fact he has been getting rocked.

He really isn’t doing anything good. Too many hits, too many homers, too many walks, too few strikeouts, just three quality starts, averaging less than six innings per outing.

The Pirates knocked him around good last year, despite a 1-0 record.

Neither start was quality. Neither lasted six innings.

Last year was his first time facing the Pirates.

First Pitch:  1:35 PM EST

Where To Watch: Root Sports, MLB.TV, CSN