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The Pirates and the 20,235 vocal fans at PNC Park had much to like from this Memorial Day matinee, a 2-1 late victory against the Chicago Cubs ...
Ross Ohlendorf pitched seven strong innings, charged with one undeserved run.
Garrett Jones homered and doubled.
Bobby Crosby's pinch-hit RBI single scored Jones after the latter to break a 1-1 tie.
And Octavio Dotel closed it out with a strikeout for his 11th save and the official end of the team's five-game losing streak.
Even the weather cooperated, with pockets of thunderstorms all over the county but somehow dodging the North Shore.
Nice day, right?
Well, forget it all and focus instead on what reliever Evan Meek called "the play that won this game," a defensive gem by third baseman Andy LaRoche that might have been, in its own way, among the Pirates' best this summer.
"Amazing," manager John Russell called it.
"Outstanding," Ohlendorf said.
Game: Pirates vs. Chicago Cubs, 7:05 p.m., PNC Park.
TV, radio: FSN Pittsburgh, WPGB-FM (104.7).
Pitching: RHP Jeff Karstens (1-1, 4.78) vs. LHP Ted Lilly (1-4, 3.63).
Key matchup: This will be Lilly's third meeting with the Pirates in as many weeks. In splitting the first two, he allowed seven runs and 15 hits in 13 innings.
Of note: Andrew McCutchen had 10 steals in the Pirates' first 18 games but has only two since April 25.
Chicago's Marlon Byrd drew a leadoff walk from Meek in the eighth and eventually made it to third with two outs. Mike Fontenot chopped a ball right up the third-base line. It might have looked to some like it could go foul, but LaRoche charged immediately, backhanded and, while sprinting forward, flung the ball across his body to first base -- right into Jeff Clement's mitt -- for the final out.
The crowd stood and roared, Meek pointed emphatically to LaRoche, and the home dugout leaped to the top step as he returned.
"That's a very tough play," Russell said. "At the same time, it's a play Andy's capable of making."
One reason was the obvious one: LaRoche has an exceptional arm. And the across-the-body technique is part of that.
The other is that he knows the territory.
"After the first chop in the batter's box, there was one more bounce," LaRoche recalled. "That one was straight, so I knew I'd have to get it. From there, it was just a catch-and-throw."
So, LaRoche is indebted to the PNC grounds crew for the true hop?
"Well," he came back with a grin, "either that, or I would have blamed them if it went badly."
As it was ...
"Like I told Andy in the dugout," Meek recalled, "he had to do everything perfectly on that play. And he did."
The rest went the way games usually do after a moment like that.
Jones' home run, his sixth overall and first at home since the season's second game, had brought a 1-1 tie in the sixth. And he came through in the eighth, too, by lining a one-out double to right.
After another out and an intentional walk, Russell sent Crosby to bat for Jeff Clement against the left-hander Sean Marshall -- "Just a lefty-righty move," Russell explained -- and Crosby worked the count full before lashing a curveball into center to score Jones.
Crosby has mostly struggled, his average at .244, but his 11 pinch-hit appearances have yielded three hits and two walks.
"That's the role I'm in right now, so you just try to be prepared," Crosby said. "It's good to have one come across."
Ohlendorf has mostly struggled, too, with his health and then his consistency in going 0-3 with a 5.11 ERA before finally putting it together in this one: He sped up his tempo, found a reliable changeup to keep hitters off his fastball and held Chicago to three hits while striking out six.
Moreover, the run charged to him hardly was his fault: In the second inning, Alfonso Soriano drove a ball toward the North Side Notch that center fielder Andrew McCutchen -- with Ryan Church converging from left and distracting him momentarily-- failed to catch. It was ruled a triple, and Soriano would sprint home on a groundout.
Ohlendorf would allow only two other runners to reach second, and one of those came on an error by shortstop Ronny Cedeno.
"Ross had good stuff," Russell said. "He's starting to throw like he's capable."
That actually began, as Ohlendorf acknowledged, in the early innings of his previous start in Cincinnati.
"I started trusting my stuff out there, and that was the big thing," Ohlendorf said. "When you're feeling good on the mound, it's certainly a lot easier to relax."
Dotel's save -- with a bloop single and two strikeouts in the ninth -- made him 8 for 8 in May and continued a roll in which he has allowed only four hits in the past 11 appearances.
There was one other factor, as well, on this day: Every player hiked up his socks for an old-school look, upon the advice of utilityman Delwyn Young, with an aim of ending the losing streak and maybe finding some offense.
The offense still was mostly absent -- two runs and seven hits hardly constitute a breakout -- but expect the socks to stay up tonight.
"It was only going to work if all of us did it, and we did," Young said. "That was a nice win for all of us."
The Pirates are 6-1 against the Cubs.
Dejan Kovacevic: dkovacevic@post-gazette.com. Find more at PBC Blog.
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