24

Alvarez, Pedro. El Toro. #24
I've seen one game at PNC, and the Pirates lost to the Phillies. Pedro Alvarez hit his first career MLB homer.
It was my son's first time at a ballgame, and he cried until the 3rd inning when he realized the Phillies were winning BIG TIME. He liked them. He adopted them as his team once he saw they were opposing my team sometime the year before, and he stuck to liking them as much as he cared for any team.

My son is left-handed and didn't like baseball, so I was willing to let him like whomever he wanted if it spurred his interest any.

I doubt anyone will really remember seeing Alvarez's first dinger since 90% of the packed stadium were Phillies fans, and they seemed ignorant of their surroundings. One fan behind me was perplexed that a guy not hitting his weight was in the lineup let alone able to it a ball over the left-center wall off their fringe 5th starter Kendrick.

Alvarez had a fair game today, and he's been on fire of late. SSS is what Keith Law is tweeting at the moment, and I agree. It's a game of adjustments.

Not sure I like the pieces that make up the team as individual players, but the Buccos didn't field a winner when they had Aramis Ramirez, Brian Giles, Jason Bay, Jason Kendell, Jason Schmidt, or Oliver Perez.

If they get timely hitting, field cleanly, and throw strikes, they won't embarrass themselves too often. May started ugly, hopefully they got it out of their system and can get over .500 soon.

I doubt it will happen, but stranger things have happened.