Atlanta Braves vs. Pittsburgh Pirates – Box Score – May 22, 2010 – ESPN.

This game was not televised, which was probably for the best. If you doubt me, take a look at this:

“B McCann struck out swinging, B McCann safe at first on wild pitch by J Hanrahan, M Prado scored, J Heyward to third, C Jones to second.”

Just bitter failure all around there. The game was delayed for an hour and a half (or how long it took the Yankees and Mets on Fox to play the third inning) by rain, so presumably even fewer people saw it than usually show up for games in Pittsburgh. Those who did saw a starting pitcher go five innings in which he walked four men and allowed five hits, and his team manage only three runs, two of them “earned”, off a starter who entered the game with an ERA over nine. And that’s the team that won.

Melky hit a homer, that’s how weird and disorienting this game was. It came leading off the second, and was followed by Prado scoring on a bases-loaded groundout from Chipper following the Pirates’ usual defensive miscues. The Braves got another run in the third on a solo homer by Hinske (starting at first) but after that it was Hibernation Mode time. Against Charlie Morton, who, from all appearances, can not pitch at all.

Derek Lowe, of course, just knows how to win, for all that he did his best to lose. Like in the fourth, when he gave up a double and a triple leading off the inning; the Pirates then bunted in the tripler to make sure that the inning didn’t get out of hand. He walked three men in the next inning, but was bailed out by a line-drive double play. He’s awful.

Bobby Cox, meanwhile, doesn’t think there’s enough work for Craig Kimbrel. You know, Robert, it’s possible that the reason there isn’t enough work for seven pitchers is that you only trust four of them enough to pitch in a one-run game against one of the worst teams in the league. He used Moylan to pitch the sixth, then to start the seventh, followed by O’Flaherty, then Saito, and then asked Saito to pitch the eighth, too. Those three innings were a tightrope the whole time. Wagner had a little more room in the ninth thanks to the abovementioned gross incompetence. Tomorrow’s game will be televised, though I am not sure that this is wise.