Red trumps all as the grounds crew finishes doing their thing Thursday night at PNC Park. When the Pirates were in Philadelphia earlier this week, they looked like a Triple-A team. They looked the same last night at home aginst the struggling Milwaukee Brewers. The Buccos scored three in the first against Chris Narveson, but that was all she wrote except for a fifth inning of blunders on the base paths. Lastings Milledge got caught in a rundown between second and third for no rhyme or reason other than dumb baserunning. The only good was that Milledge dragged out the rundown long enough for Bobby Crosby to reach second. Then Crosby compounded the stupidity by getting caught in his own rundown. Sheesh. I was at the game with a local curator, who likened the gaffes to ones she often sees at her kids' Little League games.
That inning was the last time the Pirates threatened to take back the lead. In the end, they fell 4-3. It was a lovely night for baseball in one of the prettiest parks in the country. Paid attendance for the night: just over 13,000. That's about 3,000 more than the IronPigs draw on a nightly basis. Talk about Triple-A.
