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Game 44: Doumit’s Walk Off HR Wins It

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It was a beautiful day for baseball and Aki Iwamura ended a long streak of futility. I was on hand to witness the historic event.

After a pair of weak outs earlier in the game, Iwamura singled through the hole between first and second in the fifth. Ryan Doumit – the hero of the game – was on second base representing the tying run. He tried to score but was gunned out by Melky Cabrera as Doumit collided with former Buc catcher David Ross.

The Braves took that lead off of Zach Duke in the second when Yunel Escobar reached on a Ronny Cedeno error and scored on a single from Ross. The Pirates broke through off of Braves starter Kris Medlen in the sixth. Andrew McCutchen led off with a triple. Garrett Jones walked and Steve Pearce brought Cutch home with a sac fly. Jones stole second and moved to third on a Lastings Milledge single. Doumit followed with an RBI single to bust the tie. That was all for Medlen. Former Pirate Jesse Chavez came in to retire Cedeno.

Duke had pitched a 1-2-3 7th, but was pulled for a pinch hitter in the home half of the inning. Evan Meek relieved and gave up a game tying dinger to former Pirate Eric Hinske to lead off the 8th. It stayed tied at 2 into the 10th when Doumit homered deep into the right field seats off of Takashi Saito to end the game.

Duke allowed just the unearned run in seven innings. He whiffed five, walked none and gave up seven hits. Medlen went 5-2/3 and gave up two runs on seven hits and two walks. Octavio Dotel pitched a scoreless 10th to get the win.

The Good
Iwamura doubled off of Chavez in the 7th. Two hits are all he had in May coming into the game.

Doumit missed the cycle by a triple.

The Pirates turned three double plays in support of Duke.

The Bad
Duke deserved the win. He did well keeping the Braves off balance. Though it seems like Atlanta started is ‘B’ team.

Cedeno committed errors in two straight games.

The Rest
Anyone else confused by the ending to Lost? I’ll have to take some time to find some Cliffs Notes on that so I can understand what in the world that was about.

I changed my mind a bit about the ‘It’s Time to Shoot Some Hot Dogs’ song. Sunday’s song was done by a church choir and it was good. So, I suppose if they are going to change it up, that’s an okay thing. I didn’t enjoy the barbershop quarter version on Saturday night. But I think it is a reasonable idea to have it song in different styles.

The wacky vendor who sells stuff at the base of the Clemente Bridge was selling jersey t-shirts with the number 22 that read ‘Hutch’. Um, should I have told the people that were working there that no one calls Andrew McCutchen ‘Hutch’?

There was a brief scare for us at the ballpark as the Ken the Lemonade vendor was nowhere to be found through the first three innings. He finally showed up, but we only saw him once. Hopefully his business was robust.

The Braves fans didn’t have any unusual jerseys. I saw a couple of people wearing Bobby Cox jerseys and that was about the weirdest that I saw. I was hoping for a Gerald Perry or a Rafael Ramirez or a Rowland Office. But I came up empty. So, Bobby Cox wins ‘oddest jersey of the weekend.’

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