Pirates and Brooms: April 11th-April 13th

Well, Joe Borowski had his first save situation of the season today and he passed, barely. Coming into the 9th, Shawn Estes had thrown 8 innings of shutout ball and I should have realized, Eight is Enough. But, with Estes pitching so well, giving up only 4 hits and 2 walks, I figured, with 101 pitches, it was OK to have him come out for the 9th to try and get a shutout out of it. Back-to-back singles later, I decided that was enough and brought Borowski into the game to have him try and nail it down for the Estes and help get Estes his first victory of the season. And he did. But not before giving up a 2-run double to Brian Giles. But two k's later, and were back at .500 and Borowski has save #1.

Despite winning the second game 7-2 and moving above .500 for the first time this season, the victory against the Pirates wasn't all sunshine and dandelions. For example, Prior pitched, poorly, again. For the second time this season, in 3 starts no less, he only goes 5 and a third, giving up 5 walks. He did strike out 8 and only gave up 2 runs, but I need him to start going deeper into ballgames. Alex Gonzalez will more than likely get suspended for making contact with an umpire after being thrown out for arguing balls and strikes, which is a baseball no-no. And I had to bring in Joe Borowski to pitch to one batter in the 9th to save the game after the bullpen loaded up the bases with 2 outs. He got the out and the save, but I would like to not have had to use him. The good news is that Sosa hit two more homers, giving him 8 on the year, in 11 games.

Now, playing in the National League, you get the downside of not being able to use the designated hitter like they do in the American League. This unfortunately can lead to pitchers getting injured, either from being hit by a pitch, swinging too hard or having to run the bases. Which is what happened today to Zambrano. After legging out an infield single, Carlos needed to leave the game since he had tweaked his knee. It looks like he's going to be out a couple of weeks while he rests up, which is a shame, since he's gotten off to a 3-0 start this season with a 1.36 ERA. Losing Zambrano for a couple of weeks puts a damper on the 5-3 win. Sergio Mitre is being called up to take Zambrano's spot in the rotation for the next 15 days, so I expect him to make 2 starts or so and then be shuttled back to AAA.

The Reds are coming to town for 4 games next and we'll look to continue our 3-game winning streak and move further away from the .500 mark. Kerry Wood, Sergio Mitre, Matt Clement and Shawn Estes are taking the mound to help continue the winning ways and they'll be faced by Jimmy Haynes, Danny Graves, Chris Reitsma and Paul Wilson.