The Pirates managed to pull this one out, and frankly it was a minor miracle that they did, because Octavio Dotel simply has no idea where the ball is going. He struck out Mike Fontenot on a pitch that was badly out of the zone, then nearly hit the next batter while walking him, then got a great play from Andy LaRoche to get the second out. (UPDATE: Dotel was up the previous night as his wife was delivering a baby, so his struggles might have happened for a reason.) Before that, all three Pirates runs came on homers, with a solo blast by LaRoche and a two-run bomb by Ryan Church. The game also featured about the wimpiest home-plate non-collision by Ronny Cedeno and Geovany Soto, who practically tiptoed around each other as the ball arrived. As it stood, Cedeno failed to touch the plate, Soto failed to touch Cedeno, and Cedeno got called out anyway.
In the minors, Jose Tabata and Pedro Alvarez each got two hits tonight, but Indianapolis lost anyway, 3-1. And Rudy Owens put up double digit strikeouts in six no-hit innings for Altoona; he's pretty clearly dominating the league in about the same way he dominated at West Virginia last year.