Another ugly lineup

These are the old days, the bad days, the all-or-nothin’ days. 
–Sin City

I’m going to say two things that will probably seem entirely incongruous in this gamethread, but they’re both equally important and true. One is that no team, ever, has had their season broken in three or four games before the end of July, even they were all ugly losses against division teams. The absolute most games the Pirates can be out of first place at the end of today is two. With a win and a Brewer loss, they’re still tied for first after six games against the Reds and Cardinals. During last night’s game, people came peeling off of the Pirate Bandwagon like they were never even there, throwing their hands up and bailing on the season seconds after Lance Berkman’s homer cleared the wall. Maybe we’ll look back at this weekend as the point when it all came undone, but damn, this team deserves more than knee-jerk panic after three losses. 

The second thing I’m going to say is this: the Pirates need a win today, because if they lose and go two back of the Cardinals with an Atlanta/Philly road trip while the Cardinals and Brewers share the Astros, there’s a really good chance they’re going to be more than two games out in seven days. Alex Presley’s thumb still hurts, so the lineup today sucks again. Chase d’Arnaud is batting leadoff again and Matt Diaz is batting second against a righty. Lyle Overbay is batting fifth, Ronny Cedeno seventh, and Eric Fryer eighth. This is a terrible lineup that’s more befitting of a 105-loss team than a first place team. And still, the season stops for no one and no one’s asking this particular lineup to win a division. All they have to do is beat Kyle Lohse today, which is far from impossible. 

It’s on Charlie Morton to go out and keep the best lineup in the National League within striking distance of the ugly lineup behind him. He’s been schizophrenic of late and he hasn’t made it through six innings since his start against the Phillies, but he’s going to have to be good today. And still, his strongest feature this year is keeping the ball on the ground and in the park, and it’s longballs that have killed the Pirates this series. The Cards can’t really stack their lineup with lefties the way some teams can (it‘s possible looks Berkman and Rasmus will be the only two and John Jay are the lefties in their lineup today), so this should be a decent matchup for Morton, even if this lineup can mash. 

The first pitch today is at 1:35. It’s just one baseball game. Sometimes strange things happen in one baseball game. Let’s hope today is one of those strangely good days for the Pirates.