Pittsburgh Sports, Opinion and Politics | Just Watch the Game Blog

The Pirates stink.

They’re 15-29 since the All Star break.

They’re 11 games under .500 and 18 1/2 games out of first place.

They’re three and a half games ahead of the fifth place Cubs and I’m betting they’ll finish fifth.

And, oh, by the way, they’re a month away from finishing their 19th consecutive losing season.

Other than, that, things are looking up. I hear they spent a lot of money on draft picks the last two years and they’re going to be really good in 2016.

Ticket prices are going up.

You really can’t blame the Pirates for realizing that they couldn’t wait until they reached the magic number of .500 before raising ticket prices. They know that that could easily take another 19 years.

The most amazing thing that I will read today is that there are actually people out there who are willing to pay $225 for a seat behind home plate at PNC Park.

The timing, as usual, is delicious. The Pirates have lost two in a row to the worst team in baseball and they’ve struck out 27 times in those two games.

Here’s the best part: There’s a real good chance that the Pirates are going to be worse next year. It would be unrealistic to expect their starting pitching to put together another first half like one they put together this year.

Maybe they’ll finally get those 30 home runs out of Pedro Alvarez.

Or maybe he’ll be in Indianapolis hitting .250 and striking out every four at bats.

Where are all the people who were calling me a partypooper a month ago?

If/when you start feeling good about this team again next year, let this season be a lesson for you.

In Major League Baseball it’s all about the 162.

The Pirates ultimately succeeded in doing what they’ve done for the previous 18 years. They became a source of misery for and an embarrassment to the city.

Meanwhile, do you know where I can get one of those “I was a Pirates fan before it was cool.” T-shirts?

The Pirates are 5 1/2 games out of first place after a loss to the Cubs. The Cardinals are between them and the Brewers and the Reds are only two behind.

I’m way too tired to look it up, but I would bet that you would find that it is extremely rare for a Major League Baseball team to win a division if it is 5 1/2 games out on August 2nd.

If the Pirates took advantage of what is supposed to be an easy schedule and won their next six games and ended up 8-2 in their next 10, the Brewers could go 5-5 and still lead the Pirates by 2 1/2.

The only way it happens for the Pirates now is if they play way over their heads against the top teams in the National League for a long period of time.

I’m penciling them in for 79-83 and fourth place.

Everybody, especially the boys at The Fan, needs to calm down.

What the Pirates have been doing is great and they are in a pennant race, but it’s July 11th and after the All Star game is when you start separating the contenders from the pretenders.

The Pirates have already had some great moments –two out of three from the Phillies, two out of three from the Red Sox –and they’re way ahead of last season.

But this isn’t 1960. It may turn out not to be 1997 when they were in the race to the end.

They’re four games over .500.

That’s spectacular compared to what the Pirates have been at this point in the season for the last 19 years, but it’s not very often that a team wins a division by playing four-over-.500 ball.

The schedule gets a lot tougher a week after the All Star break.

The Pirates, after starting with the Cubs and Astros, have a long stretch of games against, St. Louis, Milwaukee San Francisco and Philadelphia to close out the month.

That takes them up to the trading deadline, where they’ll be at a distinct disadvantage to the big boys.

Keep your eye on Charlie Morton and Kevin Correia.

Correia, after a start that got him on the All Star team, has a 6.32 ERA in his last three games.

In his last five starts. Morton has given up 20 runs in 21 innings. That’s an 8.57 ERA.

That’s also the kind of pitching everybody was expecting from that staff before the season. If any two of their starting pitchers decides to live down to expectations, the Pirates will be irrelevant before the Steelers’ first exhibition game.

Enjoy it, but keep it in perspective. Especially if you work for an all sports radio station.