Win One for Emily

Sometimes life fulfills your dreams.  Neil Walker knows about that feeling.

Sometimes life brings you mysteries.  Emily Whitehead has bruises all over her body.  It’s called leukemia.   It must be a horrible feeling.

I will give you more on Emily after we get the dream part out of the way.

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Dreaming of some runs?

The Pirates struggle to score runs, but I didn’t realize it was this bad.  Did you know the Pirates offense has scored eight runs in the fifth inning all season.  Eight runs.  Eight.

The Pirates have been outscored 299 to 171.  Let’s look closer.  In the first four innings the Pirates have been outscored 170 runs to 91 runs.  From the fifth inning until the end of the ninth, the Bucs have been outscored 128 to 76.

Heh, the Bucs have won the extra innings four to one.

Who’s Hot?

Andrew McCutchen has reached base safely in 15 straight games.

Neil Walker as four multi-hit games in his eight starts having made four starts at third base and second base.

Aki Iwamura has hit safely in six of his last eight games.  HEH!!  Easy with the boo birds, I am just reporting the facts.  Haha!

In the past 20 games, Garrett Jones has gone 25-for-76 (.329)

Who’s Due?

Andy LaRoche has gone 1-for-10 in his past four games.  Keep him at seventh where he hits .318, not second where he is .208 (15-for-72.)

Ryan Church has gone 1-for-16 in his last seven games.

Ronny Cedeno has gone 0-for-10 in his past three, after hitting safely in seven straight games.

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Emily

The Pirates have their first off day in 20 games tomorrow.  With a win tonight their record would be 9-11 during their longest trip of the season.  Paul and Jessica Maholm will be making the most of their day off along with many of Maholm’s teammates.

They will be hosting a ‘Strike out Cancer’ event at the Gilda’s Club starting at 6pm.  Gilda’s is a cool spot.  It allows men, women and children, who are living with cancer,  along with their families and friends a place to build social and emotional support as a supplement to their medical care.  Now that is thoughtful.

It hits home for me.  My good buddy Tom Whitehead found out their daughter Emily has leukemia.  He found out last Friday.  RumBunter is where I take my mind off the world.  I simply ca’t understand how something like this happens.  Life is tough.  If you have a child or know some children, check this out.  You will learn a lot.  I sure did.  Here is Emily’s Journal that her Mom started a few days ago. 

Emily is five.  She is tougher than you.  Way tougher than I am, that’s for sure.

Do me one favor.  Leave a message for her.  Her Mom and Dad read each message to her.   I trust the Pirates will sweep the Cubs tonight.  For Em.

Isn’t she cute?  She’s tough too don’t forget.  So go leave her a message!

UPDATE:  From Tommy Whitehead:  ”She responded well to her first heavy dose of chemo….”