Pirates vs. Astros Series Preview

After a 4-day layoff for the all-star break, the Pittsburgh Pirates are playing baseball again. They are in Houston for a 3-game set with the Astros, which is only good news for us.

The Pirates are 7-2 against the Astros this year and have outscored Houston 38-27 in those games. Here's the probables for this 3=game set:

Friday: Jeff Karstens (7-4, 2.55) vs. Brett Myers (3-9, 4.88)
Saturday: Paul Maholm (6-9, 2.96) vs. Bud Norris (5-6, 3.46)
Sunday: Kevin Correia (11-7, 4.01) vs. Wandy Rodriguez (6-6, 3.52)

The Pirates had a big 10-game stretch in the month of July before the break, scoring 6 runs per game and hitting .299 as a team. If the bats can keep that up, it shouldn't be a problem taking another series from the Astros.

Neil Walker really came on in July. In his last 8 games, he has 14 hits (.438), 3 of them doubles and one a triple. He has struck out just once in that time. Walker is a huge key to this offense, and is a great bat to have hitting around Andrew McCutchen when he's on.

Another thing to look for in the first couple weeks of the second half is the return of Jose Tabata and Pedro Alvarez. Tabata will be back before Alvarez, and there are serious questions of what the Pirates will do with the roster now that Alex Presley is called up and hitting extremely well. You certainly cannot justify not starting him every day somewhere, so it looks like he'll take over in right when Tabata comes back and plays in left.

The Pirates are also going to have to make some decisions on who to keep on the active roster and who to demote/release. Xavier Paul seems to be the odd man out right now, but there is some time between now and when those decisions have to be made.

Anyways, it's important for the Pirates to get off to a good start against the Astros this weekend, because they have a really tough schedule coming up after it. They play Cincinnati and St. Louis at home, then travel to Atlanta and Philadelphia to finish out the month. This is a huge stretch and we will see exactly what this team is made of the next 3 weeks.

Check back here every night for liveblogs and gamedays. Let's go Bucs.