Pirates Suffer Soul Ripping 9-8 Loss To Mets
By Tom Smith
A
come-from-ahead loss is always tough. When the “ahead” was a 7-0 lead for the Pittsburgh Pirates, it’s a soul ripper.
The Pirates don’t often hold too many 7-0 leads. And they didn’t hold this one for very long. (Perfect place for a photoshop, but my chest hurts.)
Carlos Beltran ripped a three-run bomb off Pirates starter Paul Maholm to ignite the New York Mets rally from seven down. A sacrifice fly in the eighth off Jose Veras, who had a rare rough outing, finished off the comeback.
We were never scared by the Mets broken record bullpen. But the Fets combination of Tim Byrdak, Bobby Parnell, Jason Isringhausen and Francisco Rodriguez did just enough to hold the lead. The final four innings weren’t easy, but they were enough for New York to steal a split rather than allowing the Pirates another road series wins.
Kudos to the Mets for showing some spunk. Shame to the Bucs for allowing four runs to score with two outs in the sixth. Shame on Maholm for giving up two walks. Maholm was left in the game, rather than going to Danny Moskos which didn’t seem like a bad decision. Perhaps Chris Resop could have came on as we look back now….
Nevertheless, Daniel Murphy made the Bucs pay for the decision and the game was 7-6. A Matt Diaz awkward throw was dropped by catcher Dusty Brown and the runner moved to third base.
Chris Resop came into the game and the runner who moved to third, scored when Brown dropped a Resop four-seamer. Tie ball game. It just wasn’t meant to be, no matter the second guessing.
A balk on Jose Veras, walks, an awful throw from McCutchen and other Mets strategy paid off and the Mets had the series split.
Xavier Paul who was on fire in this game lead off the ninth with a triple and scored on a Neil Walker single. It was all they could manage against Frankie Rodriguez, and it was too little too late. The damage was done.
Despite all of the Pirates hits, the soul of this Pirates fan is on the floor.