Man, are the Pirates bad...

Nothin' like playing a really bad NL team to start up a steak here.
I'm not taking anything away from our dearest White Sox, for they have been playing some good baseball. It might be easy to lose sight of that when you see how bad the Pirates are (mainly in tonight's game), but you have to love the fact that Quentin got a couple of RBI's, Juan Pierre continues to own the basepaths, and Paulie continues to raise his average.
But the real thing that excites me? is that we haven't had to use the home run lately to win. This is what Ozzie and Kenny planned to do, and whether or not they get into all these little reality-show-like tiffs with each other (oddly enough my favorite channel ever MLB network will actually have a reality show about this...), they have always agreed on that type of play. It happened in 2005, and it seemed to work pretty well if I do say so myself. Everything seems to be clicking together in that respect, and I hope it continues.
And another thing I wanna say (a little Lou humor for ya there if you heard that sound clip of him complaining about Stone Pony complaining about him not playing Tyler Colvin enough...) is about the pitching. I read an interesting article in the Tribune today about how D.J. Carrasco has noticed that the bullpen has been struggling a bit for the Sox without him. I, like Ozzie, give Carrasco TONS of credit for his performances last year, but I also know that the way we built this pitching staff, we shouldn't have needed a long reliever like that. He would have been wasting away only coming in every once in a while and perhaps he wouldn't stay as good. The way the pitching has actually been was a different story, as the starters hadn't gone very long. But lately things have been turning around for them too, as Danks had a long outing today, and let's not forget Gavin's from the other night.
Basically, I like seeing this team be the team it's supposed to be. Hopefully we can get back up to .500 and at least make a run for this thing. I know everyone is calling the Ranger and still complaining because "the Pirates suck". They do suck, but that's why we need to win these games above all else. These are the teams we are supposed to beat, and if we start winning, then the overall feel in the clubhouse and the ballpark will be a very good thing, I promise you.
So can we sweep the Pirates tomorrow? I guess we'll find out. ^_^