Please allow me to rant for a second. On last night's broadcast, the Pirates' broadcasters (who I feel pretty sure were Greg Brown and Steve Blass, though I'm not 100% positive) talked about the Pirates' record against the Padres at PNC Park as if they were talking about the Curse of Tutankhamun and that the Pirates were somehow, inexplicably just unable to beat the Padres at PNC because it had been ordained by the universe to be thusly. That's ridiculous.
Counterpoint #1: PNC Park came into existence in 2001. The Pirates were just brutally terrible from 2001-2010, and they had brutally terrible stretches in both the 2011 and 2012 seasons. It is not crazy that the Padres beat them so often at PNC Park. I'm not even sure it's terribly improbable.
Counterpoint #2: The Pirates are not hitting the ball right now. The Pirates are built on pitching and run prevention and when it comes to offense, what they have is this: platoon hitters, streaky hitters, streaky platoon hitters, terrible hitters, and Andrew McCutchen. They've been spotty all year at the plate. This is a bad time for them to get cold, obviously, but here we are.
It's not too late for the Pirates. Charlie Morton and Gerrit Cole are closing out this series against the Padres. Certainly, both guys can pitch well enough to put the Pirates into a position to win. Tyson Ross starts for the Padres tonight. He was pretty good early in the year, but since he the Pirates tagged him for five runs (four earned) in Petco on August 20th, he's run out of gas. He's got a 5.40 ERA since then and in his last start, he lasted 2/3 of an inning and allowed six runs.
The Pirates need to start scoring more runs if they want to win the NL Central. Tonight seems like a good place to start. First pitch is at 7:05.
