OK, so here’s the math: The Pirates were almost completely shut down by Kyle Kendrick last night, which means that you would typically expect them to be completely overmatched and out-classed by Roy Halladay tonight. But the Pirates, for some reason, tend to flip this thing around and lose to bad pitchers only to beat good ones so often that it’s almost become a cliche among Pirate fans. Which means that a decent part of the fan base is actually almost expecting the Pirates to beat the Phillies tonight, precisely because they are bad and Roy Halladay is really, really good.
On the flip side of this, you could argue that Halladay is, in fact, so good that he’s immune from the reverse-jinx that the Pirates have affected on good pitchers in recent times. This has, so far, not been rooted in reality as in two starts against the Bucs, Doc is 1-0 and has only allowed one earned run in 15 innings with 16 strikeouts and just one walk. This is the side of the argument that I find rather convincing. As Han Solo might say, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
UPDATE: David Pinto takes a sandblaster to the “The Pirates hit good pitching” idea. Of course we all remember losing to Rodrigo Lopez and beating Danny Haren, beating Clayton Kershaw twice, and beating Matt Cain the night after losing to Barry Zito, but when you score as little as the Pirates do the reality will always be that you just don’t score much against anyone. And I’m sticking by my “Halladay is going to eat us alive” statement.
Zach Duke pitches for the Bucs, first pitch is 7:05. 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.
Charlie Morton’s latest bad start got a lot of people two notches on the belt last night, though he did cost his few true believers pretty big. Delwyn Young’s leadoff homer and sac fly made him the Clemente for the night, which caught a few people off guard. Some people (well, OK, just me), missed both of them and took a tumble in the standings. The runners up, Clement for Cangelosi and Doumit for Clemente, didn’t bring anyone any points.
Today’s standings:
- Don_Madden: 22
- Woodward: 19
- dafletch: 17
- brian2: 16
- hisjazziness: 15
- Wizard of Woz, North Shore Ryan: 14
- hwtrine68: 13
- bwzimmerman: 12
- ndbrian: 11
- Garrett122, pdiddy0020, whygavs: 10
- Carnegie Chip: 9
- UtesFan89, pdiddy0020: 8
- apk, edgeman2k: 7
- Nate, TuckerD13, dboz: 6
- J. Latrobe, TheHulk: 5
- appeal2smail, michaelbro8: 4
- TomKaikis, Joek, tylerrcurtis, TheJewelryMan!, fruitbat: 3
- PatrickHealy, MattB, SteelCity66, BadAndy, spazaru, Adam_Reynolds, Mr. Ando, appeal2smail: 2
- FSU Bucs, Christy, appeal2smail, SeanGentile, shsteimer, TheHulk, Traco Bucco, Tate, Neopold, IndianaJohns04, wk kortas, jac8, CoryR: 1
- Everyone else: 0
- NSN, Mosca, danatural, Teflon, John Sparrow, Cecilio_Guante, matt w: -1
- PHook4000: -7
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