Step outside (or open your window or whatever) and take a nice, deep breath. The Pirates’ first workouts are today.
The Pittsburgh Pirates are no longer 57-105, they’re 0-0 just like everyone else.
When I think about the nightmare that was the Pirates’ 2010 season, the defining characteristic is how much I wanted it to be over. I never want baseball to be over, but by about last August all I wanted was for the offseason to start. And then the offseason started and the regular season still hung everything that happened. How can Kevin Correia – Lyle Overbay – Matt Diaz help a team that lost 105 games last year?
But it’s over now. It’s true that some of the issues raised in 2010 will remain issues in 2011, but other things — the Dana Eveland/Hayden Penn disasters, months upon months of Andy Laroche, Aki Iwamura, and Lastings Milledge trying and failing to hit baseballs, and the general malaise that six-game losing streak after six-game losing streak create — are behind us.
2011 will no doubt have it’s own share of peaks and valleys and it’s true that the Pirates will probably have more of the latter than the former. But they’ll be new peaks and valleys and that’s what I’m ready for. 2010 is over, and April 1 can’t get here soon enough. Who’s ready for baseball?
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