This series was absolutely miserable.  The pitching was average, the offense was nonexistent to say the least, and the defense was completely terrible in the second game of the series.

Jeff Locke continued to show that he is prone to giving up the longball, as he gave up two today.  What makes matters worse was that he gave one up to a catcher who was playing in Double-A earlier this week and the other to a player who was hitting .075 coming into today’s game.

Again the Pirates struggles offensively continue to cost the team close games.  Seven hits isn’t the bad part, the bad part is when you only score two runs on those seven hits.  The two runs came from an Andrew McCutchen solo-homerun in the first inning and a balk by Cubs reliever James Russell in the seventh, allowing Brock Holt to score after leading the inning off with a triple.

As if the Pirates weren’t between a rock and a hard place already, they prepare to travel to Cincinnati to take on the NL Central division leading Reds for a three game series. The Pirates have 23 games left and they need 10 to break the streak and probably at least 16 to get into the postseason.  Things aren’t looking good.