Off Day Talk... From a Bus

So I'm on a coach bus right now on my way to Erie to play in a tennis tournament. I tethered wi-fi through my iPhone (don't tell Verizon on me) so I have time and Internet and decided to ramble a bit about baseball and stuff.

First of all. The Pirates are 5-7 after 12 games and if you would have told me this is where we'd be before the season started, I would have been just fine with it. Taking two out of three from the Phillies is good no matter what, and while a 3-6 road trip isn't ideal, it certainly could have been worse considering the whole west coast thing and the fact that we are hitting .205 as a team right now. Much like last year, the rotation is off to a solid start. It's going to be very interesting going forward. The injury to Karstens isn't something you wanted to see, although it's certainly not going to cripple the team. They have Kevin Correia pitching well and nobody should be too upset about him staying in the rotation for awhile. Brad Lincoln has looked great this year and A.J. Burnett is on the way up with just one rehab start left to make. It could be a tough decision between Lincoln and Correia on who to keep in the rotation when Burnett makes that first appearance. More on that when it's relevant.

James McDonald has been a bit suspect so far. He was pretty efficient in his first start but didn't look all that great in his last two. For the season he has a 3.45 ERA in 15.2 innings. He's got six walks in those innings, not a horrible number. He threw 30+ pitches in the first inning of his last start, which is never a good thing to see and won't result in many positive things if he keeps doing it. The good news is that he's limiting hits when he's in the strike zone. Home runs have always been an issue for him and he has allowed just one to this point. We'll continue to keep an eye on him as the early months progress.

Charlie Morton worries me a bit. He got hit around pretty well by a Giants lineup that was loaded with lefties. He only has one real good pitch, and that doesn't fly well in the major leagues. He needs to use the curveball and the change up more often and make those pitches as good as possible if he wants to have sustained success. The good news is that the two-seamer is really good and that alone should keep him in the rotation throughout the year assuming he stays healthy.

At this point I don't even really want to talk about the offense. It's been so bad and everybody has been talking about it. The fact is that Clint Barmes, Rod Barajas, and Jose Tabata aren't going to hit under .100 for long, it's hardly even possible no matter how bad a major leaguer is. You can't exactly say the same for Pedro Alvarez, because he seems to be at a different level of bad. Again, I don't want to get into that. I think you're going to see Alvarez improve as the season goes on, the question is just how much. He has two hits that are both home runs, and both big time home runs at that. However, going 2/28 (or whatever he is) isn't cutting it even if all his hits are homers. I said I didn't want to talk about the offense, and I did. Well technically I typed it. Things will get better, they aren't going to have a team .205 average come June. It might be like .230 or .240, but at least not .205.

The coming home stand will be fun to watch. After a tough nine game roadie I'm sure the guys are glad to be back in Pittsburgh and will be amped up for their first divisional series. The Cardinals are without Lance Berkman and Chris Carpenter, and Adam Wainwright hasn't been good either. Despite that, they are sitting at 9-4 and have the best team batting average in the league. Hopefully they start missing Albert Pujols soon. If the Bucs can go 4-2 on the home stand they'll be chilling at 9-9 and everybody will be hyped.

That's one good thing about being a Pirate fan. You don't have to ask for much. If the team wins half its game you feel like your ugly girlfriend just magically got super hot and all the other guys are jealous of you. If the team stays bad and the girlfriend stays ugly, at least you know she isn't going to leave you and it's not like anybody can make fun of the guy dating the ugly chick, because he's been doing it for so long that it's not even cool to talk about it anymore.

We just drove past this power plant. I hope I never work at a power plant.