That's Certainly Less of a Reason to Like Craig Breslow.

Oh, Craig. You're killing me.

Even though Kyle Snyder's pants are too big, he threw three strong innings today. He faced eleven batters; struck out two of them, walked one, allowed one hit (a double), but didn't give up any runs. Okajima also had a nice outing. He threw two shut-out innings. He allowed two hits, walked one, and struck out one.

Mike Timlin came in for the sixth inning. It wasn't a terribly good outing for Timlin. He did strike out one. He also gave up three hits (two singles and a double) and allowed two runs to score.

Then came Breslow. I will admit that just watching it on television it was less horrible than it seemed on the radio. The Pirates benefited by some poor fielding by the outfield. Regardless, he gave up two doubles and two singles. He allowed three earned runs and also allowed an unearned run when George Kottaras threw the ball back to him poorly and he didn't manage to catch it. He did strike out the last batter, though.

Papelbon came out for the eigth inning and it was three up-three down.

As for offense, Pedroia had a home run in the first inning and Joe Thurston hit a home run in the eighth. That was it for extra base hits. The other run was scored off a sacrifice fly by Chris Carter in the sixth. Julio Lugo had two singles, as did Alex Cora. Bobby Kielty, Kevin Youkilis, Jed Lowrie and Sean Danielson had a hit each. And that was that.