It's always nice to send out your sixth starter and score five runs in the first inning. It's also nice when the opposing team is nice enough to send out Jayson Werth, Adam LaRoche (who earned a bunch of boos in my section in the upper deck for his second-inning double - apparently he knows how to do that in April now) and a bunch of guys who might, under different circumstances, be in Class AAA. The Nats played a bunch of ugly defense, and the Pirates got to Livan Hernandez in the first. Hernandez's curveball looks so unbelievably slow that it looks like you can pretty much treat it as a batting practice pitch if you guess it's coming - it's amazing to me that he's still as effective as he is.
Jeff Karstens pitched six decent innings for the Bucs, and was bailed out in the seventh by Chris Resop, who pitched what appeared to be a very good two-strikeout inning. Evan Meek again had serious problems finding the strike zone, but escaped the ninth inning unharmed.
Andrew McCutchen, by the way, had a great day, going 1-for-2 with two walks, stealing two bases, and gunning down Rick Ankiel at second in the first inning.