MAKE UP YOUR MIND!

I say this respectfully to my beloved Pittsburgh Pirates: "Make up your mind!"

My message to the Pirates is,"It would be a lot easier if you guys could figure out whether you've decided to be a winning major league ballclub this year - or not.

Every time I think you're going down the tube - you turn around and win a couple of games and I get excited all over again.

Not only do you win these games; but many times the incentive to do so came from formerly unproductive offensive ball players flirting with the Mendoza line who for some strange reason now and then find a way to get a timely hit or pitch a good game."

The old Boston Braves team was covered by Boston Globe sportswriter Gerald V. Hern among others. In 1948 (Yeah, I was a Pirates baseball fan back then, too) Hern wrote a poem about the Braves supposedly 'thin" pitching staff.

It's not that the guys were on "weight loss" - it hadn't been invented yet. It's just they were up and down with their pitching as Hern lamented.

The two reliable and more consistent pitchers were Warren Spahn and Johnny Sain, but they couldn't pitch back to back every game, thus the old saying"Give me Spahn and Sain, and pray for rain."

The Pirates seem to be having difficulty finding their own second consistent starter after Gerrit Cole. We thought it would be one of about three. But, they can't seem to recall how to win as they did in 2013 and we let Burnett get away for a sum that's considered chump change these days in professional sports.

Unfortunately, the "rain" prospects for the Pirates are as difficult to predict as their starting pitching. The talents are there. What seems to be lacking is a good sports psychologist.

We desperately need a starter who will emulate Cole and regain their memory.

Cole, our former #1 draft choice - beat the Dodgers the other day and received appropriate backup from his team.

Unfortunately, when I saw that Liriano (0-5) was the next starter up and facing a Dodger pitcher Josh Beckett who had just come off a no-hitter, I reached for the Tums.

Fortunately, Beckett was no Johnny Vander Meer.

 Liriano pitched a good (almost) 6 innings - and we got timely hits against Beckett, along with  a good bullpen performance from previously reliable guys who seem to have finally jelled.

(It's okay. I had both my fingers AND my legs crossed.)

Rooting for this years Pirates team this year has been a lot like asking Lucy van Pelt to hold the football while you attempt a field goal.

Oh, and the second  "Make Up Your Mind"?

That's for yours truly - your impatient blogger who apparently forgot what it's like to be a "good' Pirates fan - and who, by the way,  has been known to have  more than a few bad days now and then, too..