Last night's exciting win over the Reds was pretty gratifying given a lot of factors; there's the residual bad blood between the teams from last year, there was the blown lead, and there's Brandon Phillips' general jackassery. All of that came together nicely to result in a huge clutch home run from Andrew McCutchen and […]

It's easy enough to sit here and say something like, "it's amazing what a difference a few days can make it baseball" because on Monday it seemed like a very real possibility that the 1-5 Pirates would start 2013 with a 5-20 record and on Friday night that seems a lot less likely with Bucs […]

Sorry for the light posting this week; my primary computer has had some serious issues, and so during they day I'm working with a six-year old Macbook (the plastic one!) with a water damaged screen and an awful keyboard and it's just not really all that useful beyond the most basic stuff.  In any case, […]

Here is a blow-by-blow description of what happened in the Pirates/Diamondbacks game this afternoon: – Clint Barmes and John McDonald both in the starting lineup. Oh crap.  – Jonathan Sanchez starting. Oh crap.  – 3-0 Diamondbacks after one. Oh crap. – 6-0 Diamondbacks four batters in to the second inning.  – Third inning, Jonathan Sanchez […]

Good news: the Pirates have won two straight road games against a decent team.  Bad news: Jonathan Sanchez is pitching and both John McDonald and Clint Barmes are in the lineup.  First pitch this afternoon is at 3:40. Wade Miley will pitch for the Diamondbacks. I'm worried about quite a few aspects of this one. 

More than anything, this was a James McDonald Game. McDonald had a 1-0 lead when he took the mound in the first inning. He walked two of the first three hitters, then gave up a double, then a home run. It looked like the Pirates were going to be stuck with J-Mac at his worst. […]

This isn't rocket science or anything, but the Pirates win yesterday would be made a lot better by a second win today. It'd give the Bucs a road series win, it'd bring their record up to 3-5, it'd put the lost weekend in LA one game further behind everyone. Today is particularly important since it's […]

After a full week of the Pirates getting strong starting pitching, shaky relief work in big spots, and absolutely zero offense, the Pirates went out and scored three runs in the first inning and put up a five spot (62.5% of the total runs scored in their first six games) for the game while the […]

Through six games, the Pirates have scored eight runs and allowed 16. That puts them dead last in the NL in runs scored and second in runs allowed. They are 1-5. Through six games, the Diamondbacks have scored 37 runs and allowed 27. That puts them third in the NL in runs scored and ninth […]

It seems like it was a million years ago, but last April the Pirates didn't score more than five runs in a game until April 30th when they put nine on the Braves in their 22nd game. They only even scored five runs four times in those first 21 games, as opposed to the nine […]

The Pirates have played five games thus far in 2013 and they've scored six runs. Three of those runs have come against Carlos Marmol, so they probably shouldn't count. Today, they'll face Hyun-Jin Ryu in his second start in America. Last week, he made his Dodger debut against Giants and served up 10 hits in […]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BGS1rvRKR7A Things are not going well right now. I suppose there's always tomorrow. Or later today, I guess.

Saying that the Pirates' offense has to start to get better soon is a true statement given how badly things have gone in the season's first four games, but Clayton Kershaw is starting for the Dodgers tonight, so maybe tomorrow is the day to hope for better. Jeff Locke gets the start for the Pirates. […]

Jonathan Sanchez vs. Zack Greinke. West Coast trips never seem to go well. 

One of the things that I hate the most about April baseball is this sentence: "I know it's early, but …" followed by a complaint about whatever pre-season concern they had. The Pirates offense has looked terrible in three games against the Cubs this week and it's been a little depressing to see, but they […]

The list of things that I don't really understand in baseball is infinite, but somewhere near the top of it is this: the veteran pitcher who's out on the mound and not quite pitching like himself, but still has things so completely under control that you never really doubt him. That was Wandy Rodriguez on […]

I know that this is a bit of a leftover from the really bad times of being a Pirate fan, but whenever the Pirates start out the season 0-1 there's a voice in the back of my head that says, "If the Pirates can't win this game, they might never get to .500 again!" I […]

Former Pirate minority owner Jay Lustig gave an interview to the Tribune Review in a story that was published late last night in which he gave some perspective on Bob Nutting's reign as owner of the Pirates. I'd recommend reading the whole thing, but the key passage is this: “If you are a small-market franchise, […]

Like most baseball fans, I was glued to my computer tonight watching Yu Darvish dominate the Astros in his quest for a perfect game. The Astros are the Astros, sure, but Darvish's curveball was the proverbial wiffle curve tonight and it made the Astros look ridiculous all night. Darvish strung together strikeout after strikeout and […]