After starting out the 2nd half with a real downer game yesterday, the Pirates came back tonight and kicked some series Ass-tro. Ohlendorf sucked the big one tonight, which was very disappointing for me. I wanted to see him go for a while tonight and notch the W. Instead, he was out and Carrasco was in after less than 2 innings. He did a pretty good job for a few innings but got in a jam later on. Then came Lopez who coughed up the lead. It looked pretty grim going to the bottom of the 5th.
Then the Pirates bats came alive for seven runs the last four innings. It was amazing. It seemed like whenever they got a hit suddenly another guy would be getting a hit. Meanwhile, the four pitchers that ended the game the last four innings (Donnelly, Meek, Hanrahan and Dotel) kept the Astros quiet. In fact, I took a look at the line-up in the 7th when Meek was on the mound and wondered if Bourn would be the last out because that would mean that Meek, Hanrahan and Dotel pitched a perfect 3 innings. Turns out it went just like that. Those three guys are like going to the bank. They always have da good stuff. And Lopez, who gave up the lead in the 5th got the W. Wins and Losses are not a real stat! Just like RBI!
Then came the awesomest fireworks show I ever saw. It really put the Dubuque and Cascade ones to shame with the sheer awesomeness of it all. I always sort of wondered why people would bother with Fireworks shows because the ones where I live just aren’t that impressive. But these ones certainly proved to be otherwise.
Before the game there was the meeting of a gang of guys from the BucsDugout website and hanging around with them. There were also people there from a Pittsburgh message board site called “Pittsburgh Sports Tavern”. Much like high school, the two websites later on sort of divided off in the two cliques. Since the two websites have different formats, it kind of made sense.
Another cool thing is that the Stats Geek guy from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette must have got wind about the gathering and came over and talked to us for a while. He was a very cool guy. He told me about the book he wrote and I told him about the farm and Iowa and he explained why the drinking laws in Pennsylvania were so insanely prohibitionist.
Everyone was very impressed that I came here all the way from Iowa, as though that was some sort of huge achievement. The next furthest away guy came from Chicago.
The most exciting part was meeting WTM, a guy who is basically a guru-know it all when it comes to minor league players. I was shocked by his age, because I thought he’d be a younger guy about my age and he turned out to be a lot older than that, probably about my father’s age. The only disappointment was not having the BucsDugout “editor in-chief” Charlie there. Charlie is a Pittsburgh guy who now lives in San Diego, so that would be a huge trip for him to make and he was just in da Burgh a few weeks ago. But for most everyone else, it was nice to put names on the blog to faces.
One guy, CaptainAwesome kept calling me Cave Man. It came from the fact that my screen name is IAPiratesFan. I thought it seemed pretty obvious that it meant Iowa Pirates Fan. He thought it was some sort of cave man talk “I a Pirates fan!” because he couldn’t fathom someone from Iowa being a Pirates fan.
Oh, something stupid at this hotel. It doesn’t have ice machines in the hallways. Instead, the brilliant guys who run this place have fridges in the rooms that produce ice. But if you want a lot of ice, you have to turn it on several hours before you can get any ice. Stupid! People need lots of ice for their coolers if they’re driving a lot. But otherwsie, great hotel. Lots of nice parking and nice rooms and uh, yeah. Cool.
So tomorrow afternoon is game 3. If it’s turning in to a huge blow out by the Astros (which seems possible since it’s Maholm vs. Oswalt) I might duck out a bit early and start to head on home. Otherwise by this time tomorrow night I’ll be somewhere in Indiana or Ohio.
