Beating up the Cubs, and other great news

The Pirates won the afternoon game with the Cubs thanks to 7.1 innings from Correia. The Cubs did not score until Biemel walked a guy and gave up a homer to Soriano in the 9th. Hanrahan came in and struck out the side to put down any hopes for the Cubs. Pearce had decent game, but was hitless. He did commit and early error at third, but made some good plays, and out ran a force out attempt to get a run for the Pirates. His sac fly also got the second run home. Tabata is back and is hitting. Walker got an RBI and the Pirates were decent over all at the plate.

The better news is Victor Black is back and pitching out of the pen at West Virginia and had a perfect inning to start off last night. Philip Irwin was filthy again with 10 strikeouts of the 18 outs he recorded. Overall it was his worst outing to date. He might need to move up a class, just like Matt Curry who is out of control in West Virginia.

Good news for us, but bad over all is the injury to Buster Posey. The Giants will likely lose their all star catcher for the year. However, the Giants are very much in contention for the NL West title and still have the pitching to take them places. They will need a real replacement for Posey and the Pirates happen to have a catcher who is available in Ryan Doumit. One has to believe that Doumit's decent play has raised his stock, and that perhaps this injury has helped raise the chances of a Doumit trade taking place.

Either way, the Pirates are very competitive for .500. It is realistic. We are now 6 games out, so NL title is starting to look a little less likely. But, we are usually further out than this. The Pirates have a real chance at .500 and I think it is time to get excited about breaking the losing streak. It might actually work out for us to have a winning season, but still be far enough out to deal some guys like Doumit, Malholm, and Biemel without looking like a sell off when we might ought to be buying. Best of both worlds.