Should've Gone!!!

Wandy was locked in -- goose egg against the National League's best offense.  "El Toro" Pedro Alvarez crushing balls out of the park.  Just killing it.  Garret Jones continues to light up opposing pitchers, as he's done all month.  Damnit, I shouldn't have sold, I should've gone to the last two games!  Here's the thing with baseball.  You could lose 4 games out of every 10 and still be the best team in the league.  There isn't a single team in the American League right now with a better winning percentage than .600.  There isn't a single team in the AL that has won 6 out of every 10 games.  None!  Two teams in the NL have ~.605 winning percentages.  That's it.  That means, and this is no exaggeration, it literally means that if you went 6 wins and 4 losses out of every 10 games, you would be the third best team in all of major league baseball right now.  That's the thing about baseball -- with 162 games, 9 hitters in a lineup, a stable full of arms for pitching -- the best teams just aren't that much better than the worst.

It's not the NFL.  No one is going 13-3 or 12-4 (in baseball terms that would be 131-31 or 121-41, you know, it just doesn't happen).  There are no 11-5 teams.  Right now in all of major league baseball there isn't even the equivalent of a 10-6 team.  None, there are none!  The best records in all of baseball, the absolute best records, are equivalent to a football team winning about nine and a half games.  The absolute best team in baseball right now would not even be equal to a 10-6 record in football.

In baseball you can have 5 mediocre months and 1 great one and have a high seed in the playoffs.  You can go 13 and 12 five times over five months, then go 20-10 and you're in a position to win the division.  The NFL is "all about parity" but that's a parody.  If you want parity, play a 162-game season.

It's all doom and gloom for a month, but if you catch fire again, if you get hot, it can all start coming back together for you.  Now, I'm not saying that's happening yet with the Pirates.  No, I would say they're still smack dab in the middle of the worst stretch this year, but here's what I am saying.  It's not even September yet.  It's not at all in any way about scoreboard watching.  It's not, in the least, about what St. Louis or LA is doing.  Not yet anyway.  It's all about one thing.  It's all about you, getting where you need to be, playing how you need to play, putting up as many wins as possible.  It's not about the Reds, Braves, and Nationals.  It's all about the Pirates, day to day, winning more than they lose.

All you have to do is win more than you lose in baseball and, come September, you're a 5-game winning streak away from playoff contention.  You're right there.

That's why I bought the tickets.  That's why I'm supposed to go to game after game, night after night.  You're not going to see magical moments every evening.  Andrew McCutchen is not going to collect 3 hits, a walk, and 2 RBIs every game.  But if you go every night, if you go to 40 or 50 games over a season, you're going to see some magic.  You're going to see a Drew Sutton walk off homerun, a Clint Barmes grand slam, a James McDonald shut-out.  But that's why you have to go in bulk.  That's a lesson I am still learning.

We need to see the blue line go above the green line (and the yellow to go as high as possible).