Starter Tony Armas throws out the Astros' Carlos Lee yesterday at PNC Park.
By Chuck Finder, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Friday, April 27, 2007
For a second consecutive day -- actually, for the second time in 17 hours -- Salomon Torres failed to close matters for the Pirates.
Wednesday, he blew his second save opportunity in three chances since Saturday and yielded two ninth-inning runs to the Houston Astros that touched off a 16-inning marathon.
Yesterday, he transformed a four-run lead into a save opportunity that he blew for a third time in his past four chances.
Still and all, the Pirates prevailed, like they seem wont to do this season against longtime nemesis Houston. Their 5-3 win marked their second sweep and a perfect, 6-0 start against Astros who heretofore owned them both on the road and at PNC Park, where Houston won 14 of 18 games before this week.
It seems a shame that the Pirates, winners of four games in a row, .500 again at 10-10 and feeling better about their to-date inoffensive selves, get to play Houston only nine more times and not again until late July.
Yet that's getting ahead of the story, which remains the Pirates' ninth-inning pitching problems.
Torres' closer role isn't open.
Put it this way, though: On a Pups In The Park day, when a handful of the announced 12,056 fans brought their canines to the North Shore, Torres appeared to be placed on a shorter leash.
"We'll do what's necessary to win a game," Pirates manager Jim Tracy said after he forced fresh-off-rehab John Grabow into a second consecutive day of mopping up a Torres mess.
That doesn't mean bullpen by committee. That doesn't mean Torres no longer holds the job in which he amassed 12 saves last September and October. Tracy was quick to add: "He'll stand up to this. He'll get it straightened out. I think he's thinking an awful lot now.
"I think some of it has to do with thought processes, realizing where you're at and trusting your stuff. Go after people, you have a four-run lead. Go get them with your best stuff. That's what we saw him do over the course of the last five weeks of last season."
Added Jason Bay, who drove in the Pirates' first two runs with a bases-loaded, full-count single in the sixth: "I don't think anybody's concerned. Everybody goes through a little funk. You don't jump ship when anybody has a rough week or a rough couple of days."
A similar refrain came from Grabow, who pitched four innings of rehabilitation assignment with Class AAA Indianapolis before coming off the 15-day disabled list and returning to action in the Pirates' marathon, 4-3 victory Wednesday: "Everybody goes through that slump ... where the game doesn't go right for you. I've been with Salomon almost four years. He's a smart guy, an intelligent guy."
In other words, he'll fix himself.
To be fair, Wednesday was not a complete meltdown on Torres' part, for half of his ninth-inning trouble was caused by infield hits. Yesterday, opening the ninth with a 5-1 lead, Torres walked a Chris Burke (batting .225), allowed a single to Mark Loretta and walked Lance Berkman to load the bases. He induced a sacrifice fly from Astros slugger Carlos Lee, but that merely brought the tying run to the plate.
The same as Wednesday, when he was welcomed back to the majors with two baserunners and one-out damage control, Grabow returned to the PNC Park mound and found Torres' trouble around him. He promptly allowed a Mark Lamb, run-scoring single and walked pinch-batter Morgan Ensberg to reload the bases. But Adam Everett hit into a force play to end the inning, series, sweep in tenuous favor of the Pirates. Grabow finished with his first save since August 19, 2004.
Through the first eight innings, there was an abundant supply of Pirates positives:
Catcher Ryan Doumit, recalled from Class AAA after Humberto Cota was placed on the 15-day disabled list because of a strained left shoulder, got a hit in his first at-bat. It was a dribbler that bounded off third base and into left field for a double.
Adam LaRoche notched his first hit off a left-handed pitcher this season, ending an 0-for-15 start (and seven strikeouts) with a single to right against Wandy Rodriguez (0-3).
Tony Armas, who entered the game with a bloated 18.90 ERA and too much rest between April 7 and April 20 starts, put his first home start to use with five-plus innings, six hits and just one earned run. "There's no question he was better," Tracy said.
Jonah Bayliss (2-1), yet another Pirates reliever who also pitched the long night before, extricated Armas and the club from a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the sixth. "A turning point," Bay called it.
Bay lashed a bases-loaded, two-strike single in the sixth to stake the Pirates to a 2-1 lead.
Xavier Nady, sent to the plate as a pinch-batter despite an aching hamstring, got hit by a Chad Qualls pitch to score a run in the eighth and keep the ailing Nady from having to run out a play.
Doumit followed with a bases-loaded, two-strike single to score two more runs, making it 5-1, Pirates.
(Chuck Finder can be reached at cfinder@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1724.)
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