Pirates can continue their Red dominance

Oliver Graham

It’s fair to say that Pittsburgh have been the big surprise of the NL Central this season and a win in this match will put them 1.5 games clear of the Brewers, who play later, at the top of the division. A win will also put them 6 games ahead of tonight’s opponenets, Cincinnati, who they have dominated this season. A win will mean 7 straight Pirate victory’s over the Reds and will mean a clean sweep in this series. Pittsburgh have won the first two games of the series without conceding a single run in two low scoring games. Today they send Jeff Karstens to the mound and he has been going very well this season with a 8-4 record with an ERA of 2.84. Since June though he has been on fire with 5 straight wins with an ERA of 1.26. To temper that though he has a poor record against the Reds but with the form he’s been in of late it may pay to overlook that small stat. The Reds are struggling to keep up with the hot pace at the top of the NL Central division and how lost 10 from 15. They have struggled against the Pirates all year with a 1-7 record and the problem is scoring runs – apart from the single win where they scored 11 runs the other 7 games has seen them score just 13 runs total and have been blanked 3 times including the first two games in this series. They send Johnny Cueto to pitch and he’s been throwing very well and he looks the biggest threat to another Pittsburgh victory. The Pirates are on a roll, they have won 9 from the last 12. They have been strong at home of late and the odds against is enough to tempt me in even though the record of Karstens against Cincinnati does put me off a fair bit, the odds of 2.2 is good enough to get me involved though.

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