Enough of predicting the win-loss record for the whole season. Let's hear your opinion of a more certain stretch of games: the seventeen that start the season for the Pirates.
The season starts with three games at Milwaukee. The first game is a day game, the next two are night games.
The Brewers have three starters who the Pirates have struggled against, and we'll see those three guys. The Pirates used to beat the Brewers like rented mules when both teams were bad; I'm not sure what their head-to-head record has been the last two years, but my sense is the Brewers have been getting payback.
Games four through seven are at Cincinnati. They play two night games and then, on Saturday and Sunday, two day games. The Reds will be coming off two day home games in three days, against a familiar opponent (the Cubs), which is more or less a pretty laid-back way to start the season.
The home opener, on April 10, a Monday afternoon affair, starts a ten-game homestand. The Pirates will get the Dodgers for four games. Two are night games; it will probably be cold, maybe wet too. But the Dodgers will be coming in from Philadelphia, so they should be acclimated.
The Pirates then have three games hosting the Cubs and three games hosting the Cardinals. Four of the six games are April night games.
At the end of the homestand, they get a day off and fly to Houston, where the Pirates are something pathetic, say 3 wins and 72 losses, over the last so many years. And then they go to St. Louis for three games.
Come Thursday, April 27, the season will be almost a month old. The Pirates just came back from two of their least favorite places. If they don't get ahead in the win column on that ten-game homestand, they could be six or more games under .500 before the month is over. Uh, not good.
So make your predictions: how many games will the Pirates win of the first seventeen? What will the record be when they get on the plane for Houston?
My guess is 8 wins, 8 losses, one rain out.
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