The swing game

Speaking in the sort of abstraction that I usually avoid, games like today's seem to be exactly the kind of game the Pirates of past seasons just don't show up for and that drives me off of a cliff. They followed up a rough Friday game with a great Saturday effort and now they've got a nice chance to take a second straight series here to open the season. Today Dan McCutchen gets his first (only?) start of the early season before heading to the minors for at least a short while to make room for Joel Hanrahan. I've written this before, but McCutchen is probably a slightly better version of Josh Fogg; the Pirates will have to score some runs today because the Diamondbacks are certainly going to score some off of McCutchen. The D'Backs are sending Edwin Jackson out for his second start of the year today. Jackson was decent against the Padres in his first start (5 innings, 5 hits, 3 runs, 5 Ks, 1 BB), but he needed 94 pitches to get through those five innings. He thro...