Let's Pretend... | Cubs 11 Pirates 6

Let's pretend it's April 1st, and the 2011 Major League Baseball Regular Season is about to begin. All of the sudden, some time traveler shows up and tells you that the Pirates will be at .500 on August 3rd. What are your emotions?

Try your best to hold on to that happiness right now. The Pirates have fallen a long way since being in first place in the NL Central at the all-star break. Since the midsummer classic, they are 7-11, and they're 2-9 in their last 11 games after losing the first 2 games of this series to the Cubs.

The story of tonight was Kevin Correia getting absolutely shelled for 2+ innings before getting yanked without recording a run in the 3rd. He gave up 4 home runs and never gave the Pirates a chance. If there is any good news, it's that the offense collected 10 hits and scored 6 runs, which would have been good enough to win on a lot of nights this year, but not tonight. The Cubs pounded out 21 hits through 9 innings and scored in 5 different innings, including the first 4 of the game. Terrible pitching, but you have to give the Cubs some credit. They have a pretty strong lineup (although it makes no sense to me why they didn't move Aramis Ramirez and Carlos Pena at the deadline).

It should also be noted that Garrett Jones hit 2 home runs tonight, it would be big for this offense if he could heat up, but I'm not holding my breath.

This is a tough time for Pittsburgh baseball fans, but no matter what happens, let's continue to enjoy this baseball season, because it's been a very positive one regardless. New fans, don't jump off the bandwagon yet. If this team can do what they've done this year, then you should be very, very excited for next year and the years after it. It's a young team that is getting more and more valuable experience with every game, and the future still looks extremely bright.

The Pirates need to grab a win tomorrow if they want to avoid falling below .500 for the first time since June 21st. The Brewers lost tonight so the Bucs remain 5.5 games out of first, which is completely overcomebable (that's not a word) in the 54 games the Pirates have left.