The Pirates were hitting the ball well and Jonathan Sanchez didn't look awful, so of course this game got rained out after two innings. I haven't seen a date for the makeup game yet, but I suppose it'll probably be later in the season since the Pirates and Cardinals play each other about a million more times. 

Tomorrow: the WHYGAVS minor league update. 

I think that it's usually a pretty ominous sign when in advance of someone's start, a team specifically demotes a tired pitcher in favor of a long reliever. In this case, I'm talking about Bryan Morris being sent back down to Triple-A Indy after throwing three innings yesterday to make room for Vin Mazzaro. It's not that the move doesn't make sense (Jeanmar Gomez, Justin Wilson, and Morris have all had long outings in the last two days thanks to poor starts from Phil Irwin and James McDonald), it's just that the whole thing feels to me like a neon sign blinking, "DANGER ZONE! DANGER ZONE!" 

There's not really anything that can be done about this at this point, it's just that I'm not at all comfortable knowing that there's a chance that we as Pirate fans could be living out a Royal fan's nightmare from last year when Jonathan Sanchez makes a bad start and gets relieved by Vin Mazzaro. It's not a secret that aspects of this rotation worry me quite a bit right now, I'm just pointing out that while the first two weeks of the season weren't so bad, there are some ominous portents in the clouds right now. 

Anyway, Jonathan Sanchez is on the mound for the Pirates. Jake Westbrook is on the mound for the Cardinals. Travis Snider is batting .400/.500/.550 since getting moved into the starting lineup regularly last week, so of course he's on the bench tonight against a righty in favor of Jose Tabata. The first pitch tonight is at 7:05. Unless it rains before then. It wouldn't rain in Pittsburgh in April, would it?

Buried somewhere beneath the final score is another nice outing for the Pirate offense against a Cardinal team that's been particularly stingy with runs of late, but that's not what anyone will or should be talking about in the aftermath of this game. Instead, there's going to be a lot of focus put on James McDonald's bad outing.

If you've all you have to go on is his final line, don't let it fool you; those five unearned runs belong on him every bit as much as the three earned runs do. It's almost hard to describe the number of ways that he was bad in this game. His curveball didn't look sharp at all, he couldn't locate his fastball, he couldn't throw his fastball harder than about 90 mph, and when he somehow put a pitch anywhere near the strike zone, the Cardinals hammered it. We've all seen bad James McDonald before, but this was something different. I'm only speaking anecdotally, but it was really hard to watch him pitch tonight and not think that there's something wrong with him, healthwise. Nothing looked right. 

With Wandy Rodriguez already missing a start, the Jonathan Sanchez experiment looking bad, Jeff Locke being Jeff Locke, and now this from McDonald, we're very rapidly approaching the scenario that I was worried about before the season started. I think that the offense is good enough to occasionally bail the team out from a bad start like they did yesterday, but that's not going to happen every night. I know it seems alarmist to say this given the week that the Pirates are coming off of, but the rotation is a looming problem for this team. 

I suppose there's at least some good news from tonight. The offense was quite good, even with home plate umpire Brian O'Nora's terrible strike zone that messed with more than one at-bat (off the top of my head, both Pedro Alvarez and Andrew McCutchen took early-count strikes that were several inches off of the plate, which necessitated bad two-strike swings at pitches well out of the strike zone with runners on base at points in the game where a comeback seemed somewhat feasible). Neil Walker hit his first homer, Starling Marte had three more hits, and Travis Snider had a couple of nice at-bats. On another night, they would've been good enough to win, but not many teams can dig out of nine-run holes. 

Francisco Liriano also made a nice rehab start for Bradenton tonight, which Tim chronicled at Pirates Prospects. The Pirates need him a little bit more every day. 

I had some things I was going to say about this game, but man, I just can't really get my head together at the moment. I was in Boston for the marathon two years ago to watch my little brother run, and it was just one of those life-affirming days that we live for as human beings. The whole city turns into this massive, living, celebrating crowd and in the middle of it is this group of incredibly driven people who're accomplishing this incredible feat of athleticism and endurance. I know that my brother has said running and finishing in under his goal time was one of the more fulfilling moments of his life; just being a part of the crowd was a pretty special experience for me. What happened there today is pretty unfathomable to my eyes, and I'm not even from Boston, nor do I have any special attachment to the city beyond one April day in 2011. 

Lance Lynn and James McDonald take the hill tonight at PNC Park at 7:05. Everyone will be wearing #42 in what I think is one of the coolest tributes in all of sports. I'm looking forward to watching baseball tonight.

The strange thing about big late-inning comebacks is that they've started before you ever fully realize what's going on. When Mike McKenry sent a Mat Latos pitch into the Reds' bullpen in the bottom of the seventh inning, the Pirates' win expectancy barely ticked up at all, going from 2.5% to 4.9%. I mostly filed it away as something that I was happy to see; remember that when the Pirates' signed Russell Martin, by biggest qualm wasn't that Martin wouldn't be worth the money that the Pirates were paying him, but that he wouldn't be worth that much more than McKenry. There was no way to know this winter how The Fort's power would translate to a new season, so seeing his first homer of the year was just one of those things I had on the radar. The same thing went for Starling Marte's single later in the inning; I was just happy to see his hitting streak continue.

After Marte's single, Travis Snider stood in the batter's box and I thought, "If he can hit a ball out of the park here, maybe we can start thinking comeback." Snider very nearly did that, ripping a shot to the top of the right field wall that a fan interfered with, obscuring whether the ball would've cleared the fence or not (if you watched the TV broadcast, Walk and Neverett were in disbelief that the umpires ruled fan interference after the review, but it looked to me like the fan reached a good ways out over the wall and I think the ball hit him over the field of play; I think the ball would've cleared the fence without interference, but there's not really any way to know for sure and so I don't think the umpires really got the call wrong). That was his second double of the day, and it scored Marte. Luckily the debate over the ruling turned out to be a moot point,  because Andrew McCutchen doubled in Snider and Gaby Sanchez singled in McCutchen to make the game 5-4. 

The Reds got a sixth run in the top of the eighth and I thought that might deflate the rally a bit, but it in no way slowed the Pirates down. Pedro Alvarez walked and McKenry homered again to tie the game. After a John McDonald out, Jose Tabata walked and Starling Marte crushed a homer down the left field line to give the Pirates the lead. They kept piling on until it was 10-6, which was good since Joey Votto opened the top of the ninth up with a huge homer to center off of Mark Melancon. Melancon put the Reds down without incident from there, though, to closeout the comeback win. 

What can you say about this game? Phil Irwin was pretty shaky early on in his start and his poor control lead to a 4-0 Red lead after two innings. It seemed like today would be a lost cause at that point, especially when the Pirates failed to chip away at the lead. Irwin made it into the fifth, though, and Jeanmar Gomez did a nice job making sure that the Reds' lead never got too far out of control. McKenry and Marte and McCutchen (all of whom had two hits in the seventh and eighth) took over from there.

Coupled with Friday's exciting win, it's been quite a while since there's been a better or more satisfying weekend of Pirate baseball. On Friday, Andrew McCutchen came up huge when it seemed like everything was lost. On Saturday, Johnny Cueto's injury opened a door for the Pirates and they went through it. On Sunday, Mike McKenry dragged the team back into a tie and Starling Marte took his turn in the spotlight to put the Pirates out ahead. These Pirates are the ones that I'd hoped to see in spring training; a bunch of young hitters capable of pushing runs across and compensating for the rough edges around the pitching staff in the early part of this season. The schedule ahead is pretty daunting (the Cardinals and Braves are coming to PNC next, and they're pretty clearly the two best teams in the NL in the early part of 2013), but things certainly feel much different today than they did after that series in LA closed up. In the first week of the season, the Pirates went 1-5 and scored eight runs. Today they scored ten runs in the seventh and eighth innings, and they're 6-6. 

Of course, over-reacting after a good week is just as bad as over-reacting after a bad one. The Pirates are back to square one. They've played some fun baseball games lately. This next week could be a doozy, though. Time to think about the Cardinals. 

After a fairly improbable win last night that required a Johnny Cueto injury and a million or so Reds left on base, the Pirates have a chance to sweep the Reds this afternoon. They're going to have to do it with a pitcher making his big league debut, as Phil Irwin's been called up to make Wandy Rodriguez's start as Wandy recovers from his hamstring injury. I talked about Irwin a bit before he tailed off at the end of spring training; he's pitched his way into being a fringe prospect, but for now his ceiling is probably approximately in the Jeff Karstens range. He doesn't throw his fastball very hard but he can put it where he needs it to go and he supplements it with a pretty ridiculous curveball that can occasionally make batters look stupid and that earned him his nickname "Filthy Phil." 

Now, I want you to think about all of the times that the Pirates have faced lightly considered young pitchers and come away looking stupid, simply because they didn't have a book on him yet. And remember that the Reds haven't seen Irwin at all because they train in Arizona like chumps and that he's only made six starts at the Triple-A level and that no one was even sure who was starting this game until yesterday. That's the Pirates' ticket to success today, I think; the Reds simply being unprepared to face a pitcher that isn't really great, but who should be good enough to take advantage of a lineup that might not be ready for him. 

Mat Latos is going for the Reds today. He was even better against the Pirates last year than Cueto was (three starts, 19 innings, 21 strikeouts, only three earned runs allowed). The Pirates will need to find a way to score some runs to support Irwin. First pitch today is at 1:35. The awesome early-1970s throwback uniforms will be in full effect today.

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 some solid bullpen work from Mark Melancon and Jason Grilli to get the PIrates a win. The real reason that the win was important, though, is that the rest of this series does not shape up so nicely. Jeff Locke is facing off against Johnny Cueto in the never optimal "ace vs. fourth starter" matchup (I don't care what order the Pirates have their pitchers in, Jonathan Sanchez is the fifth starter) and it looks like Phil Irwin will be making his big league debut tomorrow for the injured Wandy Rodriguez. 

All of that being said, it'd be fantastic if the Pirates can steal a second win from the Reds in this series. There's no question about it; they're going to have to score some runs off of Cueto tonight because the Reds are going to score some runs on Locke. Cueto's more or less owned the Pirates for a few years now. Still, I guess maybe stranger things have happened. 

First pitch tonight is at 7:05. If you're in the Pittsburgh area, the game should be broadcast on the MLB Network since the Penguins are on ROOT. Travis Snider's hot bat of late has earned him his fourth straight start against a right-handed pitcher. 

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 sitting at 4-6. If anything, though, Friday's 6-5 win over the Reds was an illustration of how much a baseball game can swing in just a few batters. 

From the outset, the Pirates were all over Mike Leake. Starling Marte lead the game off with a hit, then stole second a pitch before Neil Walker drew a walk. Marte went to third on an Andrew McCutchen flyout, but ran into an out at the plate when Garrett Jones grounded the ball to Joey Votto (there was some discussion afterwards of whether Marte was preventing a double play by running into the out at the plate; I don't know if the Reds really could've turned two on the play because Votto was pulled way in and it looked to me like Neil Walker got a huge jump on the play and may have been able to beat the throw to second). The Pirates still managed to score a run when Russell Martin singled Walker home in the next at-bat. A Brandon Phillips homer got the Reds the run back, but in the second the Pirates strung together five singles (Snider, Barmes, Walker, McCutchen, and Jones) with a hit by pitch (Marte) to push four runs across and take a 5-1 lead. 

AJ Burnett didn't really have his best stuff tonight, though, and so the Reds slowly crept back into the game. They got a run in the fourth and another run in the sixth to close the deficit to 5-3 before Burnett came out of the game. With Shin-Soo Choo and Joey Votto sandwiched around Chris Heisey to open the seventh, Tony Watson relieved Burnett. Watson didn't look great and he threw a bunch of pitches in getting Choo to ground out, walking Heisey, and getting Votto to fly out on because of a spectacular catch by Starling Marte on a dying line drive. I thought that would be it for Watson, but Hurdle left him out there to face Brandon Phillips and Phillips hit his second home run of the game just over the centerfield wall to tie the score at five. 

At that point, it felt like the whole game had come apart at the seams. The Reds had battled all the way back and the back end of their bullpen is pretty phenomenal. Who wants to find themselves in the situation the Pirates found themselves in after the top of the seventh? Five minutes later, though, the whole game had turned on a dime. The Reds brought JJ Hoover out to relieve Leake in the seventh. Andrew McCutchen lead the inning off. He fouled off a pitch, took two pitches, then fouled off two more. Hoover went back to his curveball for the third time in the at-bat and while he didn't hang it, Devin Mesoraco wanted it on the outside part of the plate and Hoover didn't get it there. 'Cutch golfed the ball just over the elbow in left field to give the Pirates a 6-5 lead. 

Suddenly, the Pirates were back ahead with Melancon and Grilli ready to go in the bullpen. Melancon mowed down the Reds in the eighth. Grilli got into a bit of trouble in the ninth when he put the tying run on second base by walking Joey Votto after what certainly looked like strike three one pitch earlier in the at-bat, but he got Phillips to strike out swinging for a pretty satisfying end-game. 

After that terrible start, the Pirates have won three of four and scored at least five runs in all three wins. Tonight, the top four hitters in the lineup (Marte, Walker, McCutchen, and Jones) all had two hits apiece and they reached base a total of ten times (the eight hits, plus Walker's walk and Marte's HBP). That's how you score runs.

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, there's one bit of news from this afternoon to mention before talking about tonight's game: Chris Leroux was designated for assignment this afternoon and Bryan Morris was called up from Triple-A to take his spot in the bullpen. For most of Leroux's Pirate career he's been a pitcher that's worked better in theory than in practice, and his awful outing against the Diamondbacks on Wednesday was apparently the last straw. Morris was excellent in the first part of 2012 as Indianapolis's closer and he finished the year with a great line even though his second half wasn't quite as good; he had a 2.67 ERA and 79 strikeouts to go with just 17 walks and eight homers in 81 innings last year. He made five good appearances with the Pirates late in the year last year after being kept down for a confusingly long time while Chad Qualls sucked the life out of things in Pittsburgh. He was all over the place in spring training this year, though, and I think that may have had something to do with his demotion to start the year. Since Wandy Rodriguez is iffy for his start on Sunday, this may be a short stint for Morris. Still, I think the bullpen is probably better with him in it, and he should give Clint Hurdle some better late-game options. 

Anyway, on to the Reds. The Braves and Nationals have gotten plenty of (deserved) hype this spring, but I think the Reds are my pre-season NL favorites. They're just an incredibly deep team with both pitching and bats and the Shin-Soo Choo trade over the winter really felt like a final piece of the puzzle sort of trade to me. For now, at least, this team is the measuring stick for the Pirates in the NL Central. The good news for the Pirates is that they get to open up this series against the Reds' weakest starter (Mike Leake) while they send AJ Burnett out to the mound. Burnett was flat-out excellent against the Reds last year, with a 2.08 ERA and 31 strikeouts in five starts against them. This start in particular, when the Pirates had slowly started sliding but were still very much in contention and seemed like they could be saved, was one of the biggest performances by any Pirate last year. Leake has only made one start this year, but he walked four hitters and gave up two dingers in six innings. The Pirates should score runs against Mike Leake and there aren't really any acceptable excuses not to. 

The first pitch tonight is at 7:05. The Pirates are giving away a ridiculous AJ Burnett t-shirt that the internet has been mocking for a week. Given Jeff Locke's start tomorrow and the uncertainty for Sunday, this seems like a pretty important game to win.