At 10:22 p.m. Tuesday, the 130th season of the Pittsburgh Baseball Club died ...
And then it was buried ...
And then it was stabbed in the eye with a sharp wooden stake ...
That was Tony Watson on the PNC Park mound, the lefty who'd been so strong for so long. He was the one who served up the monster blast by Matt Carpenter to tie, the two-run shot to Randal Grichuk to concede the lead and the follow-up to Jhonny Peralta.
All after two outs and two strikes.
All in a span of four batters in four minutes.
All those home runs equaling the amount Watson had allowed in all of 2015.
It was surreal, the entire scene. The 20,369 on hand, most of whom stuck out all the back-and-forth, were standing and roaring, one strike away from stopping a seven-game losing streak and, maybe, plugging the home team's season back into life support. Only to witness all of the above.
And yet, the scene also was eminently predictable. Just ask the Pirates' front office. They're really smart. They saw all of this coming. They even told us so.
To continue reading, log into your account:
