One week in

It's one week into the season and it's hard to tell how the Pirates look, at least compared to previous victory-deficient seasons. The offense has been better than a typical Bucs offense in April. The starting pitching has been a little weak though. With the exception of Gorzelanny on Monday, all the starters pitched have pitched well enough to keep the team in the game, but usually not anything to get excited about (Snell on Sunday, clearly the exception). Today however, Zach Duke has pitched quite well. He became the first Pirate of the season to pitch into the seventh inning. He allowed ten baserunners (8 hits, 1 walk, 1 hit-by-pitch), but only one run. Duke also had six strikeouts, which is a nice total for him. Unfortunately, the Pirate's offense has not yet shown up (it's currently 1-0 in the eighth, and the Pirates have 1 hit). The last time I posted during a game, the Pirates came from behind to win, so I'm hoping for the same thing tonight.

Other Bucs News:
Over the weekend, the Pirates signed closer Matt Capps to a two year deal, at an affordable rate even. So, that's three three key players the team has signed to multi-year contracts in the past few months. All three players are good enough to start on most teams and they're certainly players the Pirates need to win. And the contracts are very team/ownership friendly too. I'm impressed.

(error on Osoria; 2-0 Cubs. Boo.)

McCutchen Watch: Though he's hitting just over .200, future Gold Glover/All-Star/Hall of Famer (not too much pressure, right?) Andrew McCutchen already has two homeruns for the AAA team. This modest bit of success is encouraging since he got of to such a rough start last year. I hope he starts to put up some impressive numbers so the Pirates are forced to make a decision on him.

Well, back to the game for me.

(Bautista leads off eighth with single! That's encouraging.)