I feel a little bit like a broken record, but if the last two years have taught us anything about how the MLB season works, it’s that the best way to get into contention is to hold serve against the good teams and then beat the ever-loving crap out of the bad ones. The Phillies are one of the National League’s few unequivocally awful teams this year. You don’t have to look beyond tonight’s starting pitching matchup to capture the general state of the Pirates and the general state of the Phillies. The Pirates are starting fire-snorting burgeoning ace Gerrit Cole, who steamrolled the entire National League in his wake in April. The Phillies are starting Jerome Williams, who spent 2008-2010 outside of Major League Baseball and has been a middling starter even since his return. His name might as well be Yes That Jerome Williams, as he is in fact the same pitcher that was a heralded 21-year old prospect for the Giants way back in 2003.
The Pirates should win this game, is what I’m saying, and the Pirates should win at least three of these four games against the Phillies. In the 10% of realities in which the Pirates come back to win the NL Central this year, I’d be willing to bet the Pirates win this series most of the time. For the moment, this club’s rallying cry should be “It’s not too late if we start digging now.”
Of course, there are signs that this club is on their way back to where we hoped they’d be when the season began. They’ve scored 23 runs in the last four games, after scoring 23 in the previous nine. Andrew McCutchen has four doubles in the last four games; he had five in the first 26. Beat the Phillies, and worry about everything else when everything else comes up on the schedule.
First pitch is at 7:05.
Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images
