Extra, Extra!

Always looking for some way to make news, the Pirates put together another great note during Sunday's 11-3 loss to Colorado. Not only did the loss put the finishing touches on a four-game sweep by the Rockies to open the second half, but the Pirates were knocked right into the Rockies record book...again.

What was it you ask?

Well as I was scanning yesterday's boxscores as I do each day at the office, I noticed that the Rockies had a truck load of doubles...eight to be exact. Add those doubles in with a triple and two home runs and you have 11 extra-base hits. ELEVEN!! That's a ton of extra-base hits. I don't care if it's at Coors or not, you don't see that very often. I quickly grabbed the Colorado media guide to see what their team record was for extra-base hits in a game. I wasn't surprised when I found that 11 XBH did in fact tie the Rockies record. It had been done three other times in Rockies history and no surprise again, one of those games was against the Pirates back on August 3, 2003 at PNC Park. Take a look at that boxscore at baseball-reference.com, it's not pretty.

I also was not surprised to look at the Pirates pitching line to see who pitched this gem and, of course, find that it was Zach Duke. How could it not be? Duke was hammered for nine runs on 10 hits in 5.0 innings of work. This is nothing new. Duke is probably the most hittable pitcher in the history of baseball. Numbers don't lie. He's surrendered 151 hits in 115 innings in 2008 and is not much better for his career (646 hits in 522 innings). Awesome. How he currently has an ERA under five is beyond me (4.92), but he won't be under that mark for very long...probably after his next start.

Even though the Rockies tying their XBH record isn't exactly breaking news, it somehow was lost in the AP recap thanks to Aaron Cook's All-Star year. I guess that's a good thing for the Pirates. Ah, just another day in the life of a Pirates fan.