Thursday, June 28, 2007
The Pirates' Xavier Nady tears into a Kevin Gregg fastball for his second home run of the night and the one that put his team ahead of Florida, 6-5, in the 10th inning.
By Dejan Kovacevic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
MIAMI -- Another blown save, another baserunning blunder, and the Pirates were well on their way to ...
Wait a minute.
They won?
On back-to-back home runs in the 10th inning?
Yes, there it unfolded on the rain-soaked field of Dolphin Stadium, a game that was unraveling in such familiar fashion when Xavier Nady and Ryan Doumit each took Florida closer Kevin Gregg deep to sink the Marlins, 7-5, last night.
Boom, boom, and on came the lights.
"It wears on you mentally, losing all these tight games like we have been," Nady would say shortly after the home run, his second of the game and team-high 13th of the year. "To have something like this happen, to see all that turn around ... hopefully, it's our turn to start feeling good."
The Pirates, clearly enjoying taking the first two games of this series after a 1-5 start to the road trip, had been feeling anything but good as this one was playing out.
It did start well, as they built a 5-2 lead through the top of the fifth.
Ryan Doumit congratulates Xavier Nady as he heads to the batter's box to send another Kevin Gregg pitch to the same part of the stadium.
Click photo for larger image.
Jose Bautista sent a Sergio Mitre changeup into the left-field seats for a two-run home run, his sixth. Nady pulled a Mitre slider to the same part of the park to open the fourth. And an Adam LaRoche RBI single and Jason Bay sacrifice fly brought a three-run lead, this despite starter John Van Benschoten getting him yanked after four innings.
But then ...
John Wasdin gave up a run in the bottom half.
Masumi Kuwata, seeing his rainbow curve struck with great force for the first time, gave up Hanley Ramirez's solo home run to start the seventh.
John Grabow gave up a leadoff single in the eighth, and Shawn Chacon followed one out later by giving up consecutive singles to Miguel Olivo and Alfredo Amezaga to tie the score at 5-5.
It was the bullpen's 11th blown save, a mind-numbing figure in many ways.
Even so, as Tracy would stress later, there were positives along the way: Wasdin stranded men at second and third with a strikeout and fine double play started by Sanchez. Kuwata retired his next two batters. Chacon stranded Olivo and Amezaga in the eighth, then pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to force extra innings.
"They hung in there," Tracy said. "Every one of them got big outs against a very good lineup."
The latest lapse on the basepaths came in the ninth, and that had the feeling of a fatal blow.
Chris Duffy opened the inning with a single and was bunted to second. But, when Sanchez popped up to shallow left, Duffy inexplicably was caught off the bag and nailed for the final out.
"The whole play's in front of him," Tracy said, appearing to choose his words carefully. "That's what I have to say about it. The play's right there."
Duffy knew it.
"I just lost track of how far off the bag I was," he said, shaking his head. "It's ridiculous on my part."
Then, in seeming correlation with the mood of the clubhouse, he allowed himself a small joke.
"But hey, if that doesn't happen, we don't get those two bombs."
Gregg, outstanding for the Marlins in going 14 for 14 in saves, zipped through the ninth and quickly had two outs in the 10th when Nady stepped up.
Thinking another home run?
"I'm just trying to get something to drive," Nady said.
He found it right away with first-pitch 93-mph heat and, true to the natural path of his swing, uppercutted it the other way 404 feet.
"You know, he probably supplied most of the power," Nady said of Gregg.
"I'd throw the same pitch again," Gregg said. "He just went down and got it."
Gregg might have regretted the next gopher ball a bit more. That was a 1-2 hanging slider that Doumit, mired in an 0-for-16 tailspin, launched close to where Nady's landed.
With that, the Pirates' dugout erupted before it had a chance to settle from the first.
And Matt Capps' seventh save, with a perfect bottom half, made it count.
"This is huge," Doumit said. "Just what we needed."
Tracy, no doubt recalling the anguish of losing two extra-inning heartbreakers in Anaheim and the past four extra-inning games overall, saw it the same way.
"We've been involved in our fair share of these, obviously," Tracy said. "To come up with a couple of big hits has the opportunity to be a huge lift for several of these individuals and for our clubhouse as a whole."
Others stood out offensively, including Sanchez going 3 for 5 and Bautista adding three walks to his home run.
But the one who stood tallest has been common of late.
"Xavier Nady has been a very consistent offensive player for us," Tracy said. "You can see that in the statistics, and you can see that from watching our games and seeing the number of big hits he's gotten for us."
True in every way: Nady, batting .281 and on pace for 30 home runs, has 45 RBIs and a .338 average with runners in scoring position.
And that charge that he always would be a platoon player because he could only hit left-handers?
He now is hitting right-handers at a .264 clip with 11 home runs, including both last night.
The only significant downer was Van Benschoten's first shaky start: He gave up two runs on three hits and five walks and, most striking, misfired on 42 of his 81 pitches.
"Command was the issue," Tracy said. "He never got into a rhythm."
"Horrible," Van Benschoten called it. "I need to get back to challenging guys."
The Pirates today will go for just their fourth sweep of the season, the first since April, when Zach Duke faces Scott Olsen.
(Dejan Kovacevic can be reached at dkovacevic@post-gazette.com.)
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