Much like they have all season so far, the Pittsburgh Pirates quickly to put rest any fears of a 2011-level collapse by defeating the Chicago Cubs, 3-2, this afternoon in front of over 30,000 Zoltanytes (just made that up) at PNC Park.
When the Pirates lost the first two games of the series against the struggling Cubs, there was some slight reminders of last summer, when the lovable losers came into PNC Park and swept the Pirates right out of the NL Central Division race.
Neil Walker and Michael McKenry homered to help the Pirates offense, which struggled for the most part during the seven-game home-stand.
I know there is concern because of how the team has been playing since the All-Star break. And while it is true that things haven't been sailing along as smoothly for the Pirates ship over the past two weeks, the fact is they're still 7-5 since the break.
I'll take that kind of struggling.
People need to remember that this team was on a 16-6 roll before the break. Baseball is a long season. It was only natural that the team would sort of come back down to Earth a little. They're not always going to win 16 out of every 22 games, just like Andrew McCutchen isn't going to have a .491 average after every 100 at-bats. The key is to keep those slumps to a minimum, which is what the Pirates have been doing all year. I'll admit it is pretty bad form to have a mini-slump against a team like the Cubs. But the fact of the matter is they still took four out of six on their home-stand. This team loves to put a lot of emphasis on taking series, and instead of sweeping the Marlins and then losing two of three from Chicago, had they taken two games in each series, nobody would have said anything about it. It would have been two more series in the bank.
But you don't get any extra rewards for winning series, at least not during the regular season. The key for this team is to keep up the two out of three pace, regardless of how it's done.
The Buccos will be fine.
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