Game 156: Pirates 1 Braves 0

Who plays three 1-0 games in a row?

I mean, I don’t want to complain since the Pirates have lost so many one-run games this year and because wins are wins at this stage in the season. The Pirates are getting some good starts, they’re getting some big hits, and they’ve got their magic number down to two with six games left. It’s always great to see Andrew McCutchen get a big hit and Francisco Liriano to put some zeroes up on the board (though he wasn’t at his sharpest tonight). Since the Cardinals won tonight, the Pirates needed a win to keep any hope of winning the NL Central vaguely alive, and since their margin over the Giants remains razor-thin, a win remains the best way to ensure there’s no bad outcome on the night (the Giants are tied 2-2 with the Dodgers as I type this).

And it’s not that the offense has anything left to prove to me or to the world or that playing three straight 1-0 games makes me think any less of the Pirates. It’s just that, well, the Wild Card Game is just over a week away now and I frankly don’t need an extra source of stress in my life from the Pirates dragging these last few necessary steps out to be any closer than the need to be.

So maybe tomorrow, score some more runs, and let’s make this a little easier, OK?

Image: Kevin Boyd, Flickr

About Pat Lackey

In 2005, I started a WHYGAVS instead of working on organic chemistry homework. Many years later, I've written about baseball and the Pirates for a number of sites all across the internet, but WHYGAVS is still my home. I still haven't finished that O-Chem homework, though.

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