Good morning. It is August 21st, 2013. With last night's win, the Pirates are 74-51. Since 1992, the Pirates failed to win 74 games in the following seasons*: 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011. The only addition to the list is 1996. This is what you remember from actual baseball from 1996: almost […]

Let's see: a strong, seven-inning AJ Burnett start, a Pedro Alvarez triple (!), a two-run Andrew McCutchen triple, and a three-run Josh Harrison triple (with 'Cutch and Harrison's triples both coming in a five-run seventh inning), combined with a Cardinal loss and a Red loss.  Combine all this with Francisco Liriano's great start on Monday, […]

The Pirates have tried to break out of their slump a few times in the last week, but they've had trouble stringing wins together since their 9-2 homestand. Part of the reason for that is that AJ Burnett has struggled a bit in his last two starts. He went into a slump in August and […]

Good morning. It is August 20th, 2013. With last night's win, the Pirates are 73-51. Since 1992, the Pirates failed to win 72 games in the following seasons*: 1994, 1995, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011. There are three new additions to the list today, which means that 72 wins is one of […]

I thought that it would be hard for Francisco Liriano to be better tonight than he was last Wednesday against the Cardinals. In the first three innings, Liriano faced 11 batters and struck out eight of them. He worked seven shutout innings in total, striking out 13, walking two, and scattering four hits. In his […]

Some of my haziest Pirate memories of the past six or seven years all involve late-summer trips to the West Coast. For whatever reason, I feel like the Padres have headed out to San Diego and often San Francisco or LA in August of just about every season, where they go to play meaningless baseball […]

For much of this summer, I've tried to choose my language carefully when the Pirates lose a few games in a row or X games out of X. Specifically, I've tried to avoid the phrase, "the Pirates have to win," because the baseball season is long and the Pirates' various spells of brilliant play have […]

I suppose the best place to start, before getting into any details of this game, is to say that a week in which your favorite team loses three long extra inning games is a week that probably wasn't as bad for them as their record indicates. The Pirates lost two series this week to NL […]

Yesterday's game did not go well. Clint Hurdle leff Jeff Locke on the mound two batters too many, and he came out of the game with an 8-0 deficit instead of a 5-0 deficit. The offense tried to rally, but Neil Walker came up against a left-handed pitcher at the critical point (down 8-5 with […]

The Pirates are one of FOX's "National Games" this afternoon, and I hate to keep harping on this because I know it gets old, but once again the Pirates being a "National Game" is terrible news for Pirate fans, because it means that you can only legally watch the game if you live in the […]

Good morning. It is August 17th, 2013. With last night's win, the Pirates are 72-49. Since 1992, the Pirates failed to win 72 games in the following seasons*: 1994, 1995, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010. There are no new additions to the list today, and so there are no new memories of past […]

When the Pirates go through their slumps and talk inevitably turns to whether or not THIS stretch is THE collapse, I think that it's wins just like this one that provide the best evidence that 2013 is a different year than 2012 or 2011. Coming off of a rough road trip, the Pirates came home […]

While there was rightly a lot of focus put on the Pirates' series in Busch Stadium this week, it could be argued that their three-game set with the Arizona Diamondbacks this weekend is actually a little bit bigger. As it stands right now, the Pirates have a pretty firm grasp on some kind of National […]

From July 26th – July 31st, the Cardinals lost seven games in a row. From August 7th – August 10th, they lost four in a row.  On June 19th, the Dodgers were 29-40.  The Braves lost 8 of 11 from April 17th – April 28th and 11 of 15 if you drag it out to […]

I don't think there's really a whole lot to say about this game. AJ Burnett hit the wall really early and blew a 4-0 lead, then Clint Hurdle did some silly things. The Pirates' bullpen pitched really well and kept them in the game, but the offense had trouble with the Cardinals' bullpen again, and […]

The Pirates and Cardinals will finish up their three-game set this afternoon at Busch Stadium, and it's worth noting that the Pirates are a terrible dropped fly ball away from having a complete stranglehold over the Cardinals in this month of August. Said fly ball was dropped, of course, so the best the Pirates can […]

Good morning. It is August 15th, 2013. With last night's win, the Pirates are 71-48. Since 1992, the Pirates failed to win 71 games in the following seasons*: 1994, 1995, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010. There are no new additions to the list today, and so there are no new memories of past […]

The only way to really bounce back from a difficult and maddening loss like the one that the Pirates suffered on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning is to come out in the next game and be the best team on the field. The Pirates did exactly that on Wednesday night against the Cardinals. Home runs from Pedro […]

We aren't quite to the point where we can call a Pirate game a "must-win" game yet, but we're getting awfully close. The Pirates have lost four games in a row now, their lead over the Cardinals has shrunk to two games, and the Reds are just 1 1/2 back of the Cardinals. The Pirates' […]

I got to work this morning with an e-mail from my dad waiting for me, telling me that maybe last night's game was just one game, but that everyone that watched it last night is cranky this morning and that it's a game that nobody will forget anytime soon. He talked about the time Matt […]