Pittsburgh Pirates reveling in the thrills of a division race: MLB Insider

Sometimes real life is stranger that fiction. How else to explain the Pirates being in first place in the NL Central after 18 consecutive losing seasons?

View full sizeGene J. Puskar, Associated PressThe cheers are back in Pittsburgh for the Pirates, as Andrew McCutchen and the Bucs are in a pennant race for the first time in nearly a generation.

BALTIMORE, Md. -- Andrew McCutchen says it would make a great book or movie. A life-changing event, he called it.

In Pittsburgh he will get no argument, because after Friday night's victory over Houston the Pirates were in first place in the NL Central. After 18 straight losing seasons, the Pirates in first place? Send the script to Steven Spielberg.

What's next, a Cleveland-Pittsburgh World Series?

Don't laugh. Commissioner Bud Selig said the first two box scores he checks every morning belong to the Pirates and Indians. Two downtrodden, small-payroll, Rust Belt teams, who just happened to enter the weekend leading their divisions.

"It would be quick travel. I wouldn't mind that," said McCutchen, the Pirates' multi-talented center fielder, of a potential Fall Classic with the Tribe.

The Pirates haven't been in first place at this point in the season since 1997. They haven't been to the postseason since 1992 and last placed in the World Series in 1979.

McCutchen, Pittsburgh's No.1 pick in 2005, didn't feel the weight of all that losing when he joined the Pirates in 2009. He was in the big leagues and nothing else mattered.

"I was just excited to be here," he said. "But once that settled down, then I started to notice. Then it started to sink in. It's all about winning here. ...

"You want to win and you're losing. You want to go out on the field and change it. The next thing you know ... you don't like it."

McCutchen, hitting .290 (96-for-331) with 22 doubles, four triples, 14 homers, 56 RBI and 54 runs, says things began to change when Clint Hurdle was hired as manager during the off-season. Hurdle took the Rockies to the World Series in 2007.

The week in review

Three up

• 1. The Angels went 11-2 in a 13-game homestand leading into the All-Star break.
• 2. The Yankees’ CC Sabathia, winning 10 of his last 11 starts, went into the break with 13 victories and a 2.72 ERA, then beat the Jays on Saturday, 4-1, on an eight-inning three-hitter.
• 3. The Tribe’s Justin Masterson is 4-4 with a 2.73 road ERA. He started the season with a career road record of 4-18 with a 5.47 ERA.

Three down

• 1. Tigers third baseman Brandon Inge went into the break hitting .186 (38-for-204) with one homer and 17 RBI.
• 2. The A’s were shut out 11 times in the first half, the most in the AL.
• 3. The Orioles lost 23 of their last 29 games entering Saturday night.

Paul's rant

On Thursday, Roger Clemens walked out of court in Washington, D.C. when the government’s federal perjury case against him was declared a mistrial. This would have never happened to Jack McCoy, the New York City district attorney from TV’s Law & Order. Then again, that’s TV and Clemens is living and breathing in real time.

Clemens dodged the charges that he lied under oath to Congress when he said he never used performance-enhancing drugs as a big-league pitcher. He was facing a possible 30-year prison sentence and a $1.5 million fine. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, in declaring the mistrial, criticized federal prosecutors for making a mistake that a “first-year law student” would have avoided when they showed evidence to the jury that had been declared inadmissible.

A hearing has been set for Sept. 2 when the judge will consider how to proceed. The government in the meantime must decide if it still wants to prosecute Clemens.

If the trial goes away, and Clemens is declared a free man, his next trial will be held on the steps of Cooperstown for admission into the Hall of Fame. He’s eligible for admission in 2013. With 354 wins and seven Cy Young awards, he should be a first-ballot, no-doubt-about-it selection. That’s not going to happen.

Mistrial or no mistrial, the stench of steroids is still thick around Clemens. If and when he gets in, he’ll be gray and stooped.

-- Paul Hoynes

"Clint always says there are two things we can control -- our attitude and effort. Everything else will take care of itself, everything else is inevitable," said McCutchen.

McCutchen said that after Hurdle benched him in May for not hustling.

The Pirates, in a close race with St. Louis, Milwaukee and Cincinnati, have one of the best pitching staffs in the National League. The starters are 36-28 with a 3.56 ERA. The bullpen is 12-15 with 27 saves and a 3.16 ERA. Starter Kevin Correia (11-7, 4.01) and closer Joel Hanrahan (0-1, 1.34, 26 saves) joined McCutchen at the All-Star Game.

Offensively, they don't do a whole lot. They're ranked 11th in batting average at .246, 12th in runs at 358 and 14th in homers with 59 among the NL's 16 teams.

Hanrahan says it's been a blast watching a city ruled by the NFL's Steelers and NHL's Penguins come back to the team with the deepest roots in the region.

"The fans don't feel embarrassed to come out anymore," he said. "The real baseball fans have been sitting at home cussing out their TV and cussing out the Pirates.

"Now they can go to the games and wear their Pirate hats and Pirate shirts. Before they'd come to the games rockin' Steeler shirts and Penguin hats. Now you come to the games and it's all Pirates stuff. You got McCutchen shirts everywhere. You've got [second baseman] Neil Walker shirts everywhere."

The Pirates have drawn 1,060,993 fans in 45 home dates to PNC Park. They rank 21st in attendance, averaging 23,577 per home game. They finished 27th last year, drawing just over 1.6 million fans. The average home attendance was 19,918.

"They're buying into it," said Hanrahan. "They're energizing us as well. It's a lot more fun playing in front of 35,000 instead of 15,000. They've been great all year."

McCutchen feels the Pirates' story is worthy of celluloid or print because it pertains to any team or any person has who has known the taste of failure and replaced it with something sweeter.

"We went from saying what we could do in spring training to believing what we could do," he said. "Now I feel every time we go out on that field that we know we'll win that game. That's why I feel the second half is even going to be a better time than the first."

Source: http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2011/07/mlb_notespirates_7-17.html

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