Ok, I do this every season; I get giddy about the Pirates chances for winning more games than they lose. Every year (for the last 14 years) I’ve been let down. Well, I’m not going to do it this time. I’ll judge the Pirates with my head, not my heart this season.

While I realize it’s only 3 games, the Pirates look good. They’ve shown in 3 games what they didn’t show until the next to the last month of the season last season: clutch hitting. Couple this with decent starting pitching, and a good bullpen, and the Pirates should turn a few heads this season.

While the Buccos won their first three in Houston (a 3-game sweep, which they haven’t done in Houston since 1991), the run production didn’t come from where you’d expect: Jason Bay, Adam LaRoche, or Freddie Sanchez (who is on the DL). The runs are coming from the top of the order all the way down to the bottom of the order. Once the power in the lineup shows up, the offense will contribute as much as defense and pitching.

Houston’s bullpen didn’t look good. They held the Pirates scoreless in this last game for 4 innings, but gave up the game-tying and game-winning runs in games one and two earlier this week. The bullpen is supposed to be Houston’s strong. Brad Lidge looked shaky, and his stuff looked just plain bad. The middle relief wasn’t much better. The Pirates took advantage and won both games at the expense of the Bullpen.

Tonight the Pirates abused Woody Williams. Woody is no stranger to the Pirates, having pitched in the National League Central for a few years with St. Louis. The 4-run fifth inning gave the Pirates a 5-3 lead - enough to win despite Salomon Torres giving Craig Biggio a solo homerun in the 9th. Torres earned his 3rd save in three games.

Although it’s early, I like what I see so far, and I actually have expectations from this club in 2007. I’m not promising a division title or a wildcard playoff berth (which I believe will come from the NL East anyhow), I do expect them to win between 85 and 90 games this season - a hell of a lot better than they’ve played over the last 14 seasons - 14 seasons in which they’ve failed to break the .500 mark. I’m actually looking forward to the games this time, and I can’t wait to get down to the park for some live action.

GO GET EM BUCS!