Perhaps we should make this a habit

As I’ve said countless times in the last two months or so, just because the Pirates do something once doesn’t mean they can make it happen again. Twelve runs with a barrage of hits from young players last night against Bud Norris and the Houston ‘pen was great to see, but today Roy Oswalt waits for them at PNC Park. You may recall last time Oswalt started against the Pirates. He threw a complete game one-hitter, striking out eight and walking just two. But that was in Houston and this is in PNC Park and if there’s anywhere the Pirates can bounce back against Oswalt, you’d have to think it’d be PNC.

For the Pirates, Paul Maholm starts this afternoon. He’s been on a bit of a roller-coaster this year and weirdly enough, his road ERA is much better than his home ERA. His last two good starts have been on the road and they’ve sandwiched an awful start at home against Philadelphia. This is all an incredibly small sample and more or less meaningless. Unless Maholm gets shelled today, at which point I’ll say, “I told you so.”

First pitch is at 1:35. 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 so far and now’s as good a time as any to join in.

It’s funny how WPA works sometimes. Javier Lopez is last night’s winning pitcher because he got the last out in the fifth inning and the Pirates immediately scored two runs in the bottom of the fifth which were credited to him, but by WPA he’s the runner-up Cangelosi because he also came in and promptly served up a go-ahead, RBI double to Lance Berkman. The night’s first place Cangelosi is, of course, Ross Ohlendorf for upchucking a three-run first inning lead as soon as he possibly could. That’s where the negative points come in. Actually, that’s where all of today’s points come from (Don continues to make a living off of the misfortune of the Pirates’ pitching staff) except for TAmy’s one, as she picked Jose Tabata as runner-up Clemente. DJ Carrasco followed up Friday’s Cangelosi performance with what I think is his first Clemente of the year.