With the Cardinals loss tonight, the Pittsburgh Pirates could end the evening in first place in the National League Central. That’s not a given since both the Brewers and Cardinals would have to lose for it to happen, but is a possiblity. A crazy, insane, glorious possibility.
First things first, though, the Bucs have to take care of business against the Chicago Cubs at PNC. Really, as much fun as having something to watch on the out of town scoreboard is, that’s all that matters right now. The Pirates have to keep taking care of business against bad teams. They played a brutal game against the Astros on Wednesday night and with Rodrigo Lopez on the mound tonight they have a chance to reverse directions tonight. They’ve been hitting middling pitchers with low strikeout totals pretty well for about a week now, and Lopez is another guy in that mold. Good teams beat pitchers like Rodrigo Lopez, end of story.
James McDonald goes for the Bucs. His start against the Nats in the first end of last Saturday’s double-header was one of his best this season. Let’s hope he can build on that tonight. I will say that I have a premonition that McDonald’s extreme flyball tendencies and Carlos Pena’s incredible hot streak right now are going to intersect and result in a lot of discussion of the trade deadline on talk radio over the next 24 hours.
First pitch tonight is at 7:05.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
