Cubs 10-6, -1.5 GB (2nd)
Pirates 7-9, -4.5 GB (4th)
POTG: SP Jason Marquis (6 IP, 6 H, ER, BB, 7 K, QS [2], W [1/69])
Runner Up: RP Keith Kart (1.2 IP, H, B, 2 K, 0 R), RP Michael Wuertz (1.1 IP, K, 0 R), SS Ryan Theriot (2 H, 3 R, BB), 1B D Lee (HR, 2 RBI), 1B Ward (2 R, BB, HR, 2 RBI), 3B A Ram (2 R, H, 2 BB, 2B), RF Fukudome (SB, H, 2 R, 2 BB, RBI), LF/3B Mark DeRosa (H, 2 R, 2 RBI), C Soto (2 H, RBI, 2B), 2B Ronny Cedeno (2 H, 2 RBI, R, BB)
I think I saw five minutes of this game, including Ward finally getting a hit this season. At that point it was over, but this one was pretty much over from the first inning. It makes it tough to pick a POTG when every does something and no one does a lot, so I’m leaning towards the pitcher who won’t get as many of these chances. Plus, Marquis threw in a double, always nice.
The Pirates are a pretty thorough team, bad all the way thru. A team like that, with question marks in the starting rotation, need more long men in the pen to eat up disaster starts or they end up shredding the bullpen like they did in this game. The Pirates instead kept throwing out pitchers who were throwing out very hittable balls. Evan Meek still does not belong in the major leagues and the Pirates are gaining no benefit by keeping the overmatched Rule 5 guy around. But that’s the sort of thing the Pirates do.
Like I said above, everyone had a good game. Look at how long that list was, everyone was chipping it a couple hits or a couple runs or both. Even Michael Wuertz got out of a bases loaded situation. It doesn’t mean much much when you’re up by 12, but it’s nice that he’d actually have a good outing for once.