Game 19: Pirates at Astros

Ian Snell and Taylor Buchholz at seven eastern.

As for this comment from Ed Eagle:

Whatever it is that separates winning teams from losing teams on a game-by-game night, the Pirates just haven't been able to find it through the first 18 games of the season. Time after time, they have come so tantalizingly close to putting it all together only to suffer another gut-wrenching defeat.

Some guys have all the luck; some guys have all the pain; some guys get all the breaks; some guys do nothing but complain. I think Shakespeare said that.

I do think the Pirates have suffered as much from bad luck as they have suffered from bad play. But I also doubt such things even out over time. Since I think it's no great difficult thing to play .500 ball, I imagine the Pirates could pull together and play .500 ball the rest of the season. Since they've been through a run of bad luck, I doubt they can finish the year at .500. It could happen, but I don't expect it. I expect they could finish right where they are now - at eight games under .500. That would happen if there is more unexpected blossoming than the average team usually sees in one year.

And a lot of the forthcoming win-loss record depends on the continued development of young pitchers. So much, in fact, that predictions about a final win-loss record are pretty stupid. We just can't know. The easy prediction would be, some will straighten out and be good while others will not. The team could win 58 if none of the starters improve beyond mediocrity. Or they could win a lot more if they enter August with four aces.

We could talk more about the relative likelihood of this guy or that guy or these guys or those guys getting it together and pitching like top-quality players. I don't know what to make of Ollie. I still expect Tom Glavine-like things from Zach Duke. That may be irrational. Ian Snell I've always seen in the Ramon Ortiz mold. Victor Santos could be like Josh Fogg. Sean Burnett and Tom Gorgonzola look promising. Any of these guys, however, could be more anything two years from now. Young starters are that hard to project.