Pittsburgh Pirates Return To Where The Fun Ended

The Pittsburgh Pirates return to the scene of the crime in Atlanta to face the hot hitting Braves. The Bucs bring some smoking hot arms, led by off-season pickup A.J. Burnett who goes to the bump tonight.

The Braves counter with  Tommy Hanson who has gone seven innings each of his last two times out.  In his last outing against the Arizona Diamondbacks, the righty gave up just two earned runs, struck out seven and walked one.

Hanson has never beaten the Bucs.

Here is a look at the pitching matchups:

Fri:    RH Tommy Hanson (3.38 ERA) vs. RH A.J. Burnett (0.00 ERA)

Sat:   RH Randall Delgado (5.74) vs. LH Erik Bedard (2.63)

Sun:  RH Tim Hudson (First start of 2012 2.83 in 2011) vs. RH Kevin Correia (2.00)

Mon: LH Mike Minor (3.42) vs. RH James McDonald (2.78)

Not enough can be said about the outstanding work the Pirates have received from their starters.  The offense?  Not so much.   The Bucs have struggled mightily to score runs, and are last in the big leagues at 2.28 runs per game.  The team is also second to last in slugging at .325 and last in OBP at .269

The Pirates were 53-48 before that fateful day last July when Jerry Meals had an out of body experience.  After that call, the Bucs went 19-42.

We thought about adding up the Pirates offensive numbers since the blown Meals call, but we were in a pretty good mood and didn’t want to blow it.  But we bet it’s bad.  Really bad.

Speaking of bad, Pedro Alvarez is doing bad things. man.  His bomb off the foul pole Wednesday is still ringing.