Bye Bye San Francisco: Road Warrior Pirates Roll On

Bye bye baby.

San Francisco can be a scary place. I still remember visiting with a bunch of friends while in the Army. The music scene was great at the time was and brought out some of the most dangerous and interesting people you will ever see. Just make sure you check for an adams apple.

San Francisco can also be scary for opposing teams in Major League Baseball this season. The Giants are the world champions for a reason. Strong pitching an the ability to manufacture runs, even if some of them come in small doses–like solo home runs.

But the Giants have problems at home and the Pittsburgh Pirates continue to love being on the road.

The Pirates started off the game the right way with Andrew McCutchen reaching, stealing, being moved to third and scoring. The offense was impressive once again putting up nine runs on the Giants sketchy pitching.

We talked yesterday about the jinx. It worked. Karstens loves giving up solo bombs. Pablos Sandoval hit his thirteenth of the year of the Zombie. It was the Giants’ 19th consecutive solo bomb. That hasn’t been done since the 1914 Phillies. The last Giants multi-run homer was a two-run homer against the Padres on July 6.

Karstens struckout a season high nine badguys.  The Zombie walked off the mound in five of his six innings by sending a Giants batter back to the dugout shaking his head after striking out.

The other star of the day was Cutch.  He was a machine. The type of performance we frankly wish we would see more of from the Pirates star.  He had three walks and went 1-for-forever with a two-run bomb that could still in the air. He was hit-by-a-pitch, stole two bases, drove in two runs and scored four more.

We had a strong feeling the Bucs would get to Jonathan Sanchez. It’s why we declared the Bucs would win in our morning post and on twitter… even after the lineups were released. It’s not so much the Pirates lineup, it’s simply that the Champs are playing really poorly right now and the Bucs were lucky to catch them when they were down. Credit the Pirates offense for chasing the big left hander after just 4.1 innings. The Pirates plated five runs. Sanchez walked four Bucs and every one of them scored.

One downside to note, the left hander did strikeout six more Buccos which raised the total to nearly 50 since Saturday. But the Pirates were able to take two-of-three because they didn’t face some of the Giants best players mainly due to injuries, how the rotation lined up, and because the Bucs were able to grab a lead and hold onto it.

The scariest place in the league is supposed to be San Francisco, but it’s not so scary if the most dangerous people don’t come out and play.

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[I am in Baltimore working the next couple days, so there won’t be much action on the site]