Other than the Pedro Alvarez miscue I mentioned earlier, the Pirates have actually been playing reasonably well. Kevin Correia has gotten the job done, and there have been some really nice moments – Ronny Cedeno taking a big walk (which he might not have done last year), some surprisingly good defensive moments by Ryan Doumit, doubles by Andrew McCutchen and Lyle Overbay. But until a second ago, the Pirates didn’t have much to show for all of that even though Ryan Dempster had thrown a number of bad pitches and was struggling, in some cases, to throw strikes.
Enter Neil Walker, who came on with the bases loaded, worked the count full against Dempster, and socked a pitch over the right field fence at Wrigley to give the Pirates a 4-2 lead. That was excellent. The Pirates have outplayed the Cubs so far today, and the score now reflects that. Correia is still on the mound in the bottom of the fifth.