Bad luck or bad judgement for Milledge?

Is hometown hero Lastings Milledge snakebite or does he just need to make better decisions on the base paths?

It’s a question that deserves a serious look after his latest misfortune running the bases Tuesday in Pittsburgh’s 3-2 victory over the Cubs.

In the Pittsburgh third, Milledge slammed a double that appeared to score Pirates starting pitcher Jeff Karstens. However, the left fielder tried to stretch his hit into a triple and was thrown out at third before Karstens reached home plate, thus wiping out what seemed to be a certain run and taking away an RBI from Lastings.

Against these same Cubbies, Milledge suffered his most embarrassing moment of his big league career when he smacked what appeared to be his first career grand slam back on May 6th. We all know how that ended. The Pirates scoreboard keeper set off fireworks signaling a round tripper and Milledge was led to believe the ball went out and slowed into his homerun trot.

Unfortunately, the ball never cleared the fence and Milledge was tagged out turning what looked like one his greatest moments in Major League baseball into a disheartening two-run double.

Fortunately, the Pirates won both games and maybe his last one, stretching his double into a triple, was the one he should’ve been taken some heat because there were no fireworks set off to cloud his thinking. On the other hand, you can’t blame Milledge for being aggressive on the base paths.