Bringing it all back home

As the Pirates embark on the NL Central odyssey that has the potential to sink their season just after it’s begun, they at least get to kick it off with a favorable matchup. At least, that’s what I’d consider Zach Duke starting at PNC against Mike Leake in his second career start to be. I’m not trying to be down on Leake (I really quite like him as a prospect), but he was pretty rough around the edges in walking seven hitters in his 6 2/3 inning debut against the Cubs.

Of course, if control is his problem again, then the Pirates need to chill a bit on their recent free-swinging ways to take advantage of it. They didn’t do that at all really on their ugly six-game road trip after an encouraging start, so it’s probably not wise to count on it happening tonight. I’d sure like to see something positive, though, even if it’s just another solid start by Zach Duke. Duke is the only starter that’s turned in an outing that could be termed “solid” to this point, so maybe asking him to do it again is being greedy.

Hard to believe this is a 4-5 team we’re talking about here, isn’t it? First pitch is at 7:05 ET (aka, the same time as the Pens drop the puck tonight) and Clemente/Cangelosi is after the jump.

Not sure what this is? Check here and here. Short version: in the comments pick the Pirates you think will be most and least valuable in today’s game. If you haven’t jumped aboard yet, it’s been a lot of fun through so far and now’s as good a time as any to join in.

Charlie Morton hurt a lot of people in Wednesday’s edition of C/C, as many saw him primed for a bounceback in San Fran and the only thing that bounced was the ball off of the bat of the Giants. That didn’t phase Woodward, though, as he’s nearly lapped the field at this point. The batters nearly tested by rule of “there must be positive scores to earn points,” but Lastings Milledge and Andrew McCutchen cleared the barrier, if barely. On the flip side, Andy LaRoche scored the worst out of a bad bunch.

Here are today’s standings.

1. Woodward -12
2. Wizard of Woz, LRNeub – 7
3. North Shore Ryan, dafletch, brian2, Carnegie Chip – 5
4. IndianaJohns04, dboz, appeal2smail, hisjazziness, UtesFan80 – 4
5. TomKaikis, apk, Joek, tylerrcurtis, apk – 3
6. PatrickHealy, whygavs, TheJewelryMan!, Fruitbat – 2
7. FSU Bucs, Christy, MattB, hisjazziness, Mr. Ando, appeal2smail – 1
8. Everyone else – 0
9. NSN, CoryR, Mosca, ndbrian, J. Latrobe, bwzimmerman, IndianaJohns04, wk kortas, danatural – (-1)