OK, so last night didn't go all that well. Mike Fiers is starting for the Brewers today. That's a good chance for something to go better. First pitch today is at 4:10. 

OK, so last night didn't go all that well. Mike Fiers is starting for the Brewers today. That's a good chance for something to go better. First pitch today is at 4:10. 

I feel like every single time I get all riled up about the Pirates' struggles with the Brewers and go all fire-and-brimstone about how great it would be to beat them, the Pirates lose and I feel like a huge idiot. 

Let's try this instead: one game only means something in baseball if you let it. The Pirates went from eleven games over .500 to ten games over .500 in this game. Don't let this loss mean more than that. It sounds like I'm giving a pep-talk to the players here, but I mean it for the fans. Pirate fans are volatile (and for good reason). Let's settle in for the long run.

The Pirates have won three in a row and four out of five against their archest of nemeses in Milwaukee, but only one of those wins (the first) came at HH Holmes Murder Castle that is occasionally also referred to as "Miller Park." The next step in the evolution of the Pittsburgh Pirates is to win some games in Milwaukee. The time for that is right now. 

As Charlie noted today, the Pirates are currently on pace for 100 wins. This Pirate team probably won't win 100 games this year ("At least not in the regular season," he said with a slight smirk in his eyes ...), but I think that their ceiling and what our expectations should be are an entirely different conversation for next week. For now let's stick with this: the Pirates are doing lots of things right and they're beating teams that they're supposed to beat and on most nights they are really fun to watch. Whether this is The Pirate Team That We've Been Waiting For or not will be determined at a later date, but for now there's absolutely nothing wrong with kicking back and enjoying this ride. 

All of that being said, this ride will be a lot more enjoyable if it includes kicking the crap out of the Brewers in their stupid stadium. First pitch is at 8:10. It's time to go down into the basement and tell the furnace that we're not afraid anymore.

Jim Callis just posted his second mock draft at Baseball America today, and both of the Pirates' first-round picks have changed from the 1.0 edition. Callis had the Pirates' taking Colin Moran and Sean Manaea in his first mock, but now he's got Moran coming off of the board before the Pirates pick at #9 (gone to the Indians at #5) and Manaea dropping all the way down to the end of the first round due to concerns with his arm.

Instead, Callis has the Pirates taking Reese McGuire at number nine. McGuire's a high school catcher from Washington (the state), though it's possible that the Marlins will take McGuire ahead of the Pirates. McGuire has a strong defensive profile and it seems like a lot of people like his left-handed bat for the power potential. At #14, Callis has the Bucs taking DJ Peterson. Peterson's a corner infielder for New Mexico that's emerged as one of the better college hitters this year. I've seen his name connected to the Pirates a LOT in these last few weeks, though he could also generate interest among the teams picking ahead of the Pirates, according to Callis. Hunter Renfroe. He says that the Pirates pretty clearly like DJ Peterson (and the Bucs have been connected to Peterson all over the place and could take him at #9 if McGuire is gone) but there's plenty of interest in Peterson and he may not last to 14, in which case the Pirates would take the next best college hitter, and that would be Renfroe.

*Edited to make up for my lack of reading comprehension.

Anyway, go read the whole thing; it doesn't just lay out pick predictions, but it discusses team mindsets and contingency plans and all sorts of good stuff like that, which is pretty invaluable information when it comes to something as unpredictable as the MLB draft.

The long rain delay in the fourth inning put a bit of a damper on this one, but the Pirates came out of the gates firing on all cylinders against Edwin Jackson and the Cubs this afternoon. In the first inning Starling Marte and Andrew McCutchen both singled and stole bases, with McCutchen's hit driving Marte in and a Mike McKenry single driving McCutchen home. In the second, Marte singled again and Travis Snider tripled him home (also: check out this picture of Snider giving the Zoltan face down on third base), and McCutchen singled Snider home. It took a long time for those four runs to hold up, but eventually they did. 

Vin Mazzaro in particular deserves a hat-tip in this win. The rain delay came just as Jeanmar Gomez was hitting a rough patch, leaving runners on first and third with two outs after the Cubs tallied their first run. Mazzaro came in and got the final out of the fourth, then cruised through the fifth and sixth to give the Pirates the equivalent of a strong start even after the rain delay. I was as skeptical of the Pirates' acquisitions of both Mazzaro and Gomez this winter and while I'm still skeptical of Gomez's ability to be a useful starter long-term, Mazzaro's been a really pleasant surprise out of the bullpen and I think there's a chance that he could be a pretty decent swing-man over the course of the season. Knowing that there's a guy like that in the bullpen is certainly a huge help in games like today's.

The sweep of the Cubs is the Pirates' second sweep of the season, and it puts them at 29-18. After splitting with the Mariners, the Pirates have rolled off 11 wins in 14 games against the Mets, Brewers, Astros, and Cubs. That's how good teams are supposed to take care of business against bad teams. I know that's a cliche, but it's one heck of a good feeling to know that it applies to the Pirates at this point in the season, and not in the way that it has in the past.

The Pirates and Cubs have a 12:35 getaway game this afternoon, but Clint Hurdle is not messing around with the typical "afternoon getaway game after winning the first two games of the series" blowoff lineup; with the exception of Mike McKenry starting for Russell Martin, Hurdle's got all of his regulars on the field today. 

That's good. The Pirates have had an easy spell in the schedule here and they've taken advantage of it, regardless of today's outcome, but after today things get tough for the next two weeks. There's a trip to Miller Park (still terrifying and still a significant hurdle-with-a-small-h for this club, regardless of how badly the Brewers suck at playing baseball right now), then two games in Detroit, then two games against the Tigers at home, then three against the Reds at PNC, then three against the Braves at Turner. That's a fairly significant 13 day stretch that sees the Pirates play some very good teams and go to four cities (Milwaukee, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Atlanta) without an off-day. Getting a win today and bumping the record up to 11 games over .500 before this stretch starts would be very nice. Clearly Hurdle feels the same way. 

For the Pirates, Jeanmar Gomez will try to continue his tightrope act for one more start. For the Cubs, Edwin Jackson will take the mound. Jackson's been hit pretty hard this year, but his peripherals suggest that he should start leveling out. Let's try and delay that by one start. 

Maybe it's just me, but isn't there something about taking a 1-0 lead in the first inning and holding it for eight straght innings that says, "Attention, Universe, this is a baseball team to be reckoned with?"

It's probably just me. It's probably just the Pirate fan in me that's so used to seeing something like this happening to the Pirates that I want to assign credit somewhere when the Pirates do it to someone else. 

Still, though. Taking a 1-0 lead in the first inning and then winning 1-0 is pretty awesome. It definitely counts as a win. I'm sure of that much.

For the last half-week or so, the Pirates have been winning ugly games against bad teams. I'm completely OK with this, so long as the wins keep coming. Francisco Liriano makes his third start for the Pirates tonight, and while the Cubs are not an intimidating lineup he did draw Pirate Killer Jeff Samardzija. Samardzija has cooled off a bit since his hot start and teams have gotten a bit homer-happy against him of late. 

Since I seemed to have some good luck writing out my formula for last night's game, I'll try it again tonight: draw some walks against Samardzija and cash in on them, preferably with a multi-run home run. Make him throw some pitches so that he doesn't get deep into the game. Liriano, meanwhile, needs to get at least through the sixth and hopefully into the seventh, because the bullpen will be slightly short-handed with Jason Grilli unavailable after last night's marathon outing. 

First pitch tonight is at 7:05. If the Reds and Cardinals are going to stubbornly keep on winning, what other choice do the Pirates have but to match them?