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Dunlap: This All Comes Down To Eddie's Right Arm

This all comes down to Eddie's right arm.

The people in our fair city will jam the North Shore on Wednesday night, will sardine into T cars that go under a river and bottleneck a bridge that crosses the same one for the chance to see the Pirates hopefully push on to the playoffs proper.

And this all comes down to Eddie's right arm.

Kids will be permitted to stay up later than normal on a school night, hoping just as much for a Pirates win as for what it will lead to --- their parents allowing them a case of Bucco Flu on Friday if the home nine advances.

And this all comes down to Eddie's right arm.

Bars will be packed, the Yinzer mass will gather, people will pull out the projectors and flash the game on the side of houses in subdivisions as the neighbors all come together and assemble.

And this all comes down to Eddie's right arm.

Nails will be bitten, paces will be paced, good-luck charms will be rubbed and beers will be had.

And this all comes down to Eddie's right arm.

Faces will be painted, billbox caps will be donned, selfies will be taken with our glorious baseball cathedral in the background and strangers will high-five strangers if for nothing more than each of them is wearing the same $10 "J-Hay All Day" T-shirt bought off a street vendor.

And this all comes down to Eddie's right arm.

Some will talk of the Fam-A-Lee to pass the time, some will tell tales of larger-than-life Cutch in the leadup to the game, some will jot their recalls about Stargell and Maz and Bonds and Bonilla and Drabek and Blass and Parker and Clemente.

But it will all be nervous talk, anxious chit-chat to pass the time until the undeniable reality at 8:07 p.m. on Wednesday night.

That's when this all comes down to Eddie's right arm.

At least it does for me.

I don't know what this amounts to for you, but it does for me.

You see, on or about that aforementioned time inside PNC Park, Pirates right-handed pitcher Edinson Volquez will be delivering the very first pitch to the San Francisco Giants in the 2014 National League Wild Card game.  There might not be a more improbable pitcher in recent Pirates history who came from where he did and will find himself in a moment of such deep consequence.

A fixer-upper who was picked up in the off-season at a $5 million rate on a one-year deal, Volquez went into Spring Training as a guy who raised the eyebrows of many of the same people who will cheer him loudly on Wednesday night.

The masses were skeptical, largely wondering what the front office had done allocating that much money to a man who might have been the National League's worst starter last season.

But as May turned into June, Volquez hadn't yet frazzled for these Pirates.

As June ended he was 6-6 and as July ended he had pushed through to a winning record (8-7) and a 3.84 ERA.

Not bad for a castoff, a discard grabbed off the scrap heap.

Volquez clomped on the gas pedal --- hard --- and won his last five decisions, pushing his record up to 13-7 and his ERA down to 3.04 as the season ended.

Not bad for a guy crumpled up, his career left in serious doubt after last season.

But all he did this year was become the incontestable workhorse for this club, as the only guy to make more than 30 starts and throw more than 163 innings --- he has tossed 192.2 to date.

When asked of his unlikely rise from an off-season move that many questioned to the guy manager Clint Hurdle ensured would get the ball in this Wild Card Game by not manipulating his rotation in the recent past, Volquez didn't mince words.

"I think I'm ready to pitch this game," Volquez said. "I think I deserve it."

He will get his wish.

When all the talk ends, the buildup ceases, the pregame pomp and circumstance makes way for the actual event, this will all come down to Eddie's right arm.

Colin Dunlap is a featured columnist at CBSPittsburgh.com. He can also be heard weeknights from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Sports Radio 93-7 "The Fan." You can e-mail him at colin.dunlap@cbsradio.com. Check out his bio here.

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