It was an afternoon well spent in watching the Pirates close out the 2010 home season with a 9-3 victory over the Astros. Figuring prominently in the win were Bucco rookies Pedro Alvarez, Jose Tabata, and Neil Walker, and second year man Andrew McCutchen. Those four accounted for eight hits, five runs, and five RBI's among them. Whatever bad things you can say about the Pirates, and God knows we've said them all, they do have four very good young players in these guys, players that you can build a team around. It has been said that the lousy Pirates teams of the early/mid 1950's did have players in place (Groat, Clemente, Maz, Friend) that eventually grew into a championship team. Baseball was a very different game then, and the question is, can the Pirates current front office supplement these four talented young players and turn the team into something that it has not been for 18 seasons? That is the challenge.
Now on to the other hero of the day:
Thanks to that wonderful invention of the 21st century - the DVR - I was able to watch the Steelers thorough mauling of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 38-13, led by a most improbable hero, Charlie Batch. An afterthought throughout the off-season and in training camp, Batch remained with the team only because of Byron Leftwich's injury in the final exhibition game, and got the nod in today's game due to Dennis Dixon's injury last week, and after not starting a game since 2007, he resurrects the Steelers heretofore moribund offense, fires three TD passes, and Rooney U. now sits at 3-0, headed to a home game with the hated Ravens next week, and an assurance of, at worst, a 3-1 record when the keys to the car get turned back to Ben Roethlisberger in three weeks.
When you are aware of the work that Charlie Batch does with at-risk youth in his native Homestead, today's heroics couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
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