Looks Like We're Going To Have Baseball

A month ago I didn't think that it was going to happen, but Opening Day for an abbreviated Major League Baseball season is set for one week from today; one week from tomorrow for your Pittsburgh Pirates.  Whether MLB will be able to complete the sixty game season and play through to  a World Series still remains a question, but let's hope.

I have to say that despite low expectations of the Pirates. I am excited at the prospect of watching a live played-in-2020 baseball game as soon as tomorrow night when the Pirates play an exhibition game with Cleveland at PNC Park.  (An ASIDE:  I noticed that one night earlier this week, AT&T Sports had scheduled one of those "Pirates Classics" reruns.  The game to be shown was a 2019 game between the Pirates and the Marlins.  Now I ask you, in what stretch of anyone's imagination, could a game between the 2019 versions of the Pirates and Marlins be considered a "classic"?)  And I especially am looking forward to watching games that count in the standings, however bastardized this season will be.  Despite a horrendous 2019 season and a pre-shutdown offseason of bitching and moaning about the state of the team, I am, like I am every season, glad to have them back.

So, how will the team that lost 93 games last year do in 2020?  Well, they traded their second best player (Starling Marte), have lost a key starting pitcher for the season (Chris Archer), their slated closing reliever, Keone Kela, is on the ten day IR, and Gregory Polanco has been confirmed to have COVID19.  So, if you take last year's winning percentage of .426 and apply it to a 60 game season, you come up with  a record of 26-34.  Sounds about right.

Also, the Pirates first twelve games of the season are against the Cardinals, Brewers, Cubs, and Twins.  It's going to be a tough stretch.

Still, I'm excited for new manager Derek Shelton.  He's waited forever for this chance, only to be dealt the blow of a pandemic that has....well, you know what it has caused.  I've listened to him many times on his weekly radio interview with Ron Cook and Joe Starkey on 93.7 The Fan, and he seems to be a pretty good guy.  I'm hoping for good things for him and the Pirates, but probably not until at least 2021 or -22.  In any event, I shall be cheering them on, as I have every year since 1959 (that's seasons in eight different decades!!!).

#letsgobucs