Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Pirates Win 8-4 in Wednesday Afternoon Matinee at Wrigley. Take Two of Three from the Cubs

There has been some slight concern among fans about the play of the Pittsburgh Pirates so far in the second half, and while the Buccos haven't been as hot since the All-Star break, today's 8-4 victory over the Cubs in Chicago means that the team is 12-7 so far in the second half.

That's not a bad stretch of baseball. The Pirates took the last two games against the Cubs after getting blown out Monday evening, 14-4.

Before their fire sale just before the deadline Monday night and into Tuesday--including trading away starting pitchers Paul Maholm and Ryan Dempster--the Cubs were playing some fairly decent baseball recently. But the upheaval to the roster was evident as the Cubs were nearly no-hit Tuesday night by Pirates ace A.J. Burnett and were trailing 8-1 heading into the 9th inning this afternoon before scoring three runs to make things look a little more respectable.

As a Pirates fan, I can certainly relate to watching a struggling team sink to even lower depths after trading whatever credible pieces it had left to contenders in late July.

But that's life as a baseball doormat. Nobody's wiping the feet on the Pittsburgh Pirates these days, and for the second year in a row, they were buyers at the deadline.

I don't know if the additions of Wandy Rodriguez, Travis Snider and Gaby Sanchez will make the 2012 Pirates significantly better, but I do know that they already have a strong enough core in place to ride this thing out until the end.

As of right now, the Pirates are two and half games back of the Cincinnati Reds in the NL Central and four and a half games up in the race for one of the two wild card spots.

The Pirates can inch closer to the Reds with their three game series in Cincinnati this weekend. But make no mistake, with 58 games left to play, the 2012 Pittsburgh Pirates are here to stay.

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