THE BULLPEN

     Root, root, root for the home team! Our Pittsburgh Pirates continue their series tonight against the San Fran Giants at PNC Park. These are your keys for tonight's game. 1)Did Mrs. Black-N-Gold say "root for the home team"? Our favorite Black-N-Gold Baseball Team makes it very difficult to root for them when they continuously take one step forward, two steps back. Last night was not exception, a 15-4 drubbing at the hands of San Fran. How bad was it? C Erik Kratz was pressed into mop-up duty in the 9th. Don't laugh. He held the Giants scoreless for the first time since the 3rd inning. With the pitching in the sorry state that it's in, maybe the Bucs want to consider moving Kratz to the bullpen. Can anyone on this team pitch consistently well? Take out an ad: Wanted pitchers, apply PNC Park. Mrs. Black-N-Gold thinks that GM Neal Huntington's comments made in the offseason, something to the effect that pitchers should pay the Pirates to come here, is coming back to bite the GM in the behind. This team is 23rd in MLB with a 4.53 ERA. You can take your metrics and try to crunch the numbers in the Bucs favor all you want but the bottom line is this pitching staff, both starters and relievers, is BAD. You got to know when to hold 'em! 2)It's tough for a team when they almost always have to play catch-up but that's what the offense has to do. Unfortunately, this team goes as CF Andrew McCutchen goes. He's ready for a break out, you say? It's hard to do that when you don't make contact. 0 for 3 with 3 strikeouts does not a break out make. If they continue to wait for Cutch to get in gear, they may be stuck in neutral for a long time. Last night they scored 4 runs. That's not good enough. We need more Hit, Run, & Score! 3)Losing 6 of 7 and 11 of 13 is a good way to sink this ship. Gimme a W! Let's Go Bucs!!!!!