The Pirates opened the evening with bad news about their closer, just another setback that this team will have to suffer through. In the late afternoon, Wednesday, Matt Capps was placed on the 15 day DL for a shoulder injury, possibly not to return for 8 weeks. With Capps out, concerns about the closing role were paramount but with the Pirates scoring 4 runs on 5 straight hits off of Reds rookie Darryl Thompson in the 1st inning, those concerns were temporarily shelved. John Van Benschoten returning to the Bucs from Indianapolis got the start and struggled with pitch placement, and was hit hard, giving up 2 home runs to Reds leadoff hitter Jay Bruce. Van Benschoten only lasted 2 and a 3rd, giving up 5 runs on 5 hits. He gave way to Denny Bautista, who locked down the reds for the next 3 innings, giving up 1 hit and striking out 2. That was a huge effort from Denny to bridge the team to the bullpen. The bullpen, consisting of Burnett, Grabow, and Yates completely shut down the Reds hitters allowing the Pirates to take full advantage of the 9 runs the offense produced

The Pirate offense has continued to produce with the most productive outfield in baseball continuing to live up to its billing. Nady led the squad tonight with 2 home runs out of 3 hits with 3 runs batted in, while Bay had 2 hits and Mclouth chimed in with his league leading 28th double. Even with the success of the outfield, tonight the offense was a combined effort, Doumit, Rivas, Laroche all had 2 hits apiece, Jose Bautista hit his 10th home run of the season knocking in 2. I was impressed with the patience of this team at the plate, and felt that the success of the offense is due to being very selective and capitalizing on mistake pitches.

Overall, it was an important series win in the light of the consistant bad fortunes of the Pirates pitching staff of late.