One of the best moments of this game for me came during the game. It wasn’t on the field – it was outside the ballpark as I was walking up. I don’t know if anyone else saw this, but it was across the street from the first base entrance. Last July 9th, Randall Simon of the Pittsburgh Pirates took a swing at a guy in a sausage as part of the popular sausage race in Milwaukee (here & here). Well, outside of the ballpark, there was a group of about 6 folks “picketing” the Pirates. One was dressed in a hot dog suit, and the others had placards that said “Hot Dogs are People Too” and “Down with Randall Simon”. It was one of the funniest things I’d ever seen. My wife and I laughed out loud when we drove by them in my truck, and then talked to ’em as I walked by saying “I know exactly what you’re joking about, that was damn funny”.
Anyway, the game was extraordinarily windy – on an order I’d not seen before. The wire story said the wind was 24mph, but it felt more than that. I thought we’d have a ton of home runs because of that, but only two went out. RA Dickey was almost Chan Ho Park like in his pitching. He was lights out for most of his outing, but had those small bits that were really bad that allowed the other team to score. Dickey gave up three in the second on a bunch of stuff that didn’t seem like a big deal, but there were too many things like that, and they all added up to a 3 spot. We countered it with a 3 spot of our own in the bottom of the third, capped by a Teixeira HR off the advertising on the upper home run porch. We went ahead in the bottom of the 5th on a 2 run single by Gary Matthews. The see saw continued on Craig Wilsons 2 run HR for Pittsburgh which tied it at 5. At that point our bullpen took over and did a wonderful job again (4.1 IP, 1H, 0R, 2BB). Really nice to see that especially given the parade of people to the DL this season – with all that instability, a nice consistent job by the bullpen is great.
The score stayed tied 5-5 until the bottom of the 10th when Hank Blalock blooped in a hit to center scoring Laynce Nix to win the game. It was funny, as the last time my wife and I saw the Pirates, it was in Houston, and that game was extra innings too. I said before the game started that it would be amusing if there was a walk off win in extra innings. ;)
One other thing about the game. My wife is from Pittsburgh, so we were all decked out in Pittsburgh stuff. She was there with her Terrible Towel. Wrong sport, but hey, it’s a Pittsburgh thing. :) And speaking of my wife we had a very nice night together, both at the game, and at home. I love my wife, and I was glad we had this night together to share a bit in her hometown sports behavior. ;)
Brett Carre: We won our 5th in 7 games with a 6-5 extra innings win over the Pirates last night.
We got behind 3-0, but we again found a way to come back to take a 5-3 lead. Wilson tied the game with a long homer to take it 5-5. That was the score until Hank Blalock hit a bloop game winning RBI single in the bottom of the 10th.
We are now only 2 back of the 1st place Angels. Can’t everybody smell first place??