THE BULLPEN

Root, root, root for the Pirates! Your Pittsburgh Pirates continue their series against the Philadelphia Sillies tonight at PNC Park. These are your keys to tonight's game. 1)LH Jeff Locke is really the scheduled starter for the Pirates tonight. Locke is 7-1 with a 2.06 ERA for the year. In his last 8 starts, Locke's ERA is 1.07. Put the Sillies in Locke-down! 2)Locke's only loss this year was his first start of the season. Locke and load, baby! 3)The Sillies will start LH John Lannan, 1-2 with a 4.83 ERA. In 9 career starts versus the Pirates, Lannan is 1-4 with a 4.53 ERA. It's time to start another winning streak tonight with lots of Hit, Run, & Score! Get to this kid. Score early, score often, score BIG! Looking at the standings, The Pirates remain atop the NL Central with the best record in baseball at 51-31. St Louie lost last night so they're 2 games back and Cincy won (something about a no-hitter, I'm sure you've heard it by now) and they are 4 games behind. Philly is 40-44 and has a road record of 21-26. This is not a good team. You have to beat the good teams and beat up the bad teams. Beat the Sillies silly! Let's Go Bucs!!!!!