A finishing blow
I don't feel like the Pirates have played much good baseball on their trip to Houston, but they've already won the series first three games and they have a chance to finish the sweep and get their road record to .500 this afternoon. They'll face Lucas Harrell, who's been quite good for the Astros in his last six starts; he's struck out 41 and walked just 15 in 40 innings, over which he's got a 2.03 ERA. Of course, the Astros are 1-5 in those six starts because they're the Astros.
James McDonald looks to build on his last outing, in which he lost to the Cubs and gave up five runs in six innings, but still looked better than he did in his first two starts back from the All-Star break. It'd be nice to see the Pirates beat Houston going away once in this series, though I suppose there's not really any room to complain so long as they finish the sweep this afternoon.
First pitch today is at 2:20.
Well it was a finish and it certainly did blow... The offense will probably come back around again but JMac's continuing troubles are extremely alarming. At least they left him in there to take an unnecessarily severe beating and yet another extended pitch count...
