In which we begin to ask ourselves if the Pirates’ start is disappointing or if the Cubs are just that good

I apologize for not writing much about the Cardinal series this weekend; it was Mother’s Day and my Mom was in town for my official graduation and hooding ceremony (that’s right: I’M NO LONGER A GRAD STUDENT), so I watched baseball but didn’t write much about it.

With the Pirates taking two of three pretty easily from the Cardinals (and arguably should be disappointed with that result, with the way the bullpen struggles continued on Saturday afternoon) and the Cubs steamrolling through a four-game sweep of the Nationals, it’s probably time to re-consider the ugliness of last week’s sweep at PNC Park at the hands of the Cubs. There has obviously been a lot of consternation amongst Pirate fans about the pitching, both from expected (Locke, Niese) and unexpected (Caminero, Feliz, even Watson here and there) and discussion over why it happened and over how long the Pirates should accept it as “good enough” vis a vis the Glasnow/Taillon discussions, but the reality is that the Pirates are 17-11 against the non-Cubs and 0-3 against a ridiculously good Cub team that is 24-6 and 9-1 against the Pirates, Nationals, and Cardinals.

This is a horrible situation to be in as a Pirate fan, given the way the last two seasons ended, but I don’t know that anyone can do anything about it at this point without a time machine. As good as the Cubs are right now, all we can do is take some solace in the fact that it’s only important to have a good season and to be the best team in October; the Cubs pulled the rug out from both the Cardinals (who were the best team in the first part of the season) and the Pirates (who were the best team in the second part of the season) with that principle last year.

That means that the Pirates need to keep on winning against the non-Cubs. Tonight they’re in Cincinnati, where things never seem to go as well for them as they should. Jon Niese pitches tonight against Dan Straily. Despite all of the focus on Jeff Locke this year, Niese has pretty obviously been the Pirates’ worst starting pitcher to this point and I would argue that it’s him more than anyone else that’s making the Pirate off-season strategy look like a failure to this point. He’s said a few times that the Pirates have him working on things, but the clock is ticking for him now that we’re in May.

First pitch tonight is at 7:05.