Halfway Through a Sports Weekend

The weekend in Pittsburgh sports started badly when the Pirates let one get away on Friday night against the Cubs, however, they talked us off the ledge last night with another fantastic pitching performance by Gerrit Cole.  They are now poised to take three of four from the Cubs today behind Francisco Liriano.  That would give them a record of 6-1 since that disastrous weekend in St. Louis last week should they take care of business this afternoon.
Tied for first place in the NL Central, and a magic number of 7 to clinch a playoff spot.

Also, we will be in attendance on Monday night when AJ Burnett takes the mound against the Padres. This will probably be our last game of the season, although I do have a tentative date with a friend to take in the Bucs first home game in the Division Series should that come to pass.

At Heinz Field yesterday, the Pitt Panthers opened up a big can of whoopass on the New Mexico Lobos, 49-27, and , trust me, the game wasn't all that close.  Not sure what this means, as NM appears to be to Bad Teams what Florida State was and is to Good Teams. Perhaps we will shall get a better indication as to where the Panthers sit on the Bad-To-Good Scale next week when they visit Duke in Durham.

One takeaway from yesterday's game of which we can be pretty sure - Freshman Tyler Boyd is one tremendous looking football player.  The Real Deal for sure.

(Elsewhere in college football, I regret that personal circumstances prevented me from seeing any of the 49-42 Alabama win over Texas A&M.  Sounds like that game was one for the ages. Tell me, did Nick Saban smile or show any sign of joy at all over his team's big victory?)

(Elsewhere in college football, part 2.  I kept switching to the Penn State game between innings of the Pirates last night.  In other days, this would have been considered a big upset and a bad loss for Penn State, but is it really?  I ask that sincerely since I am not well informed on the fortunes of UCF, but under the leadership of George "Mr. Resume" O'Leary, perhaps they are making strides on the national scene.)

Part Three of the Weekend Trifecta takes place tomorrow night in Cincinnati when the Steelers play the Bengals.  Not a lot of hope after the mess the Steelers showed us last week, but there is always hope because (a) Ben Roethlisberger is better than Andy Dalton, if it comes down to a battle between the quarterbacks, and (b) there is always hope that the Bengals will continue to be, well, the Bengals, which they were last week when a stupid personal foul penalty ended up costing them the game.

Speaking of which, are you getting tired of the "Hey, Marvin Lewis is a Western PA Guy" stories whenever these two teams play?  In case you missed it, the Post-Gazette pulled out that old chestnut today.

Let's Go Bucs!!! 

Here We Go, Steelers!!!!