



PITTSBURGH – Two decades of pent-up frustration releasing itself made a unique sound Tuesday. It was not a little wheeze, like a pinprick deflating a raft, nor a primal roar, as if one giant wail could pump all of the Pittsburgh Pirates' historic bilge straight into the Allegheny. No, it was a drumbeat, a rhythmic rat-a-tat, time-honored and tailored perfectly for the man on the mound, who just so happened to have the misfortune of being born with a two-syllable last name.

[Photos: Best of MLB wild card playoffs]





Johnny Cueto – pronounced KWAY-toe, as 40,487, give or take a few Cincinnati Reds fans, chanted mercilessly at PNC Park – heard it. Of course he heard it. He had to hear it. Anyone with functioning ears would hear it. People across the river joined in, and those watching at home played sing-along, and around the world, displaced Pirates fans who had waited for this moment – a playoff game, actual October baseball – dreamed of what it sounded like.

And then he dropped the ball.

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Please understand: It is 99.9 percent likely these two things were a coincidence, that in the second inning of the Pittsburgh Pirates' first playoff game since Sid Bream slid them into 20 years of oblivion a chant of the pitcher's name started, then multiplied, then mushroomed exponentially into a dirge ... and the pitcher, who just so happened to be rubbing the ball with his hands at the time, fumbled it, saw it trickle away from the mound and emboldened people who needed no emboldening to chant "KWAY-toe, KWAY-toe, KWAY-toe" for the rest of his short outing. Pure fluke.

Only the very next pitch – not three pitches after, not 10, the next one – settled over the plate, and Russell Martin pummeled it into the left-field bleachers. And the place started to shake, because when you've spent as long as the people here had watching misery, things like a dropped ball begin to take on more significance than they actually hold, little amulets that say maybe, just maybe, tonight is the night.

It was. Cueto exited after 10 outs. Martin later hit another home run. Francisco Liriano threw seven brilliant innings despite a bad headache and a throat so sore he couldn't talk above a whisper. And the Pittsburgh Pirates, long the epitome of baseball ineptitude, vanquished the Reds 6-2 in the one-game National League wild card game and moved on to the NL Division Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.

"I think as the legend grows," Martin said, "it'll be like the sound waves of the people making all that noise grabbed the baseball out of his hand and made it drop and messed with his rhythm."

[Related: Reds' Brandon Phillips: 'We choked' in wild-card loss]

Whether it was magical sonic phalanges or simple butterfingers, this was the best drop Pittsburgh has seen since Jackie Smith. The 27-year-old Cueto, Cincinnati's ace who had missed 2½ months with a lat strain, wasn't supposed to make the start. A bone chip in scheduled starter Mat Latos' elbow sidelined him, leaving Cueto to bear the brunt of a crowd that arrived hours early and milled outside of the stadium, drinking, talking and dressed in black. The effect was noticeable: the beautiful stadium turned into a vortex of darkness from which the chant emanated.

"I don't care about those things," Cueto said. "I don't listen to them. It's like opening day. It's like any other game. That doesn't scare me. Nothing happened with the crowd."

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