Tuesday, April 17, 2007
By Dejan Kovacevic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pirates third baseman Jose Bautista, left, laughs and shakes his hand after he was issued a stinging high-five by Pirates closer Salomon Torres, right, after making the final out of the baseball game against the Cardinals Monday.
ST. LOUIS -- Getting a save after two poor outings?
Good stuff.
Retiring Albert Pujols with the bases loaded?
Riveting stuff.
But achieving that after two awful mishaps had pretty much handed the game to the opponent?
"If I could use one word to describe what transpired in that ninth inning ... priceless," Salomon Torres said, smiling wide after preserving the Pirates' 3-2 edging of the St. Louis Cardinals last night at Busch Stadium. "You know that MasterCard commercial? Well, it doesn't get any better than that."
Nor any tougher.
There is a category some baseball statisticians keep called tough saves.
This one should serve as the bar ...
Ian Snell again gave the Pirates a sterling start -- one run on three hits over seven innings -- and the offense produced three first-inning runs for a rare spurt. Jason Bay drew a bases-loaded walk off erratic Anthony Reyes, and Xavier Nady rapped a two-run single up the middle.
But St. Louis chipped away for the one off Snell in the seventh, another in the eighth off Matt Capps and Damaso Marte, and the 3-2 lead was turned over to Torres for the ninth.
This after Torres blew a save last Tuesday, lost the game the next day, then sat and stewed through a blowout and two rainouts.
"I've been eager to get the ball back," Torres said. "But this ... it was the ultimate situation for any closer, facing the best hitter in the game."
Adam Kennedy led it off with a squibber to first baseman Adam LaRoche, but LaRoche -- perhaps finally lugging his .105 average into the field -- failed to scoop it up, then kicked it for his first error.
Yadier Molina bunted Kennedy to second before more misfortune.
Pinch-hitter Aaron Miles hit another squibber, this toward third baseman Jose Bautista. But the ball struck the bag and bounced, almost comically, over Bautista for a single.
Pirates starter Ian Snell pitched seven innings last night, giving up one run on three hits to the Cardinals in St. Louis.
Runners at the corners.
If not for Jack Wilson backing up Bautista, the score would have been tied.
"Heads-up play by our shortstop," manager Jim Tracy said.
The next batter, David Eckstein, was hit by Torres' first pitch.
Bases loaded.
Torres complained after his previous two outings that he lacked aggressiveness, lacked confidence in his pitches.
Now?
"I had to push my adrenaline," he said. "I had to push myself to another level."
Chris Duncan popped up to shallow left for the second out.
Into the box stepped Pujols, with the sellout crowd of 43,026 rising to its feet and roaring.
If Torres had any nerves, they were not detected by catcher Ronny Paulino.
"I could see in his eyes he was going to give me everything he had," Paulino said. "He was going to go right at him."
Torres did take that approach, but maybe a little too much.
The first pitch was a sinker that did anything but sink, sailing high for ball one.
Next pitch was another sinker, again staying high. But Pujols, not yet himself with a .170 average, could not lay off. He took a full-force swing, but some "late movement to the inside," as Paulino described it, kept the ball off the barrel of the bat.
A high popup landed in Bautista's glove.
Cardinals second baseman Adam Kennedy loses control of the baseball as he tries to complete the double play after forcing Xavier Nady out at second in the first inning last night in St. Louis.
Torres sprinted to Bautista and high-fived him with enough force that "I think I broke our third baseman's hand." And more congratulations were extended across the infield, in no small part because the Pirates had shaken a four-game losing streak.
Tracy praised the entire team for the victory, with an emphasis on Torres.
"You have to tip your cap to our closer," Tracy said. "He never wavered one bit. To me, that's the sign of a guy that wants to be out there with the game on the line. He showed some true mettle."
Snell did, too, in evening his record at 1-1 while lowering his ERA through three starts to 1.80.
He held St. Louis to a single and two walks through six innings, retiring 12 in a row at one point. But he gave up his run in the seventh and had bases loaded with one out.
Would Tracy take him out?
"I thought about it," Tracy said. "But to pitch as well as he had ... to take that game away from him would be wrong. He still had gas in the tank."
True enough. Snell's count was only at 84 pitches.
Still, he acknowledged having to find something extra to get his pinch-hitter Skip Schumaker to pop up and Eckstein to ground out on a sharp curveball.
"I was just praying, 'God, give me some energy from somewhere,'" Snell said.
And what did it mean that Tracy let him stay on the mound?
"It showed me that he had confidence in me to get out of a tough situation."
The Cardinals sounded impressed by Snell's slider that "gave us fits," according to Eckstein, and, above all, Snell's poise.
"He kept the ball down," Pujols said. "And he had a good idea what he was going to do with every hitter."
The Pirates will go for the sweep of the two-game set this afternoon.
Dejan Kovacevic can be reached at dkovacevic@post-gazette.com.
Freddy Sanchez is tagged out by Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina in the third inning yesterday in St. Louis. Sanchez was trying to score from third when St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Scott Rolen threw home on a fielder's choice.
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