Another fun game tonight, and it's fantastic to have an offense that's downright watchable, at least for the first six batters. Pedro Alvarez had his second straight multi-homer game to bring his rate stats up to .259/.325/.509, and Delwyn Young had a homer and five RBIs. Garrett Jones had two hits and nearly missed a homer of his own. Neil Walker and Lastings Milledge have been hitting well too. And Andrew McCutchen isn't even in the lineup right now. The Bucs have scored 46 runs in their past five games. The success they've had over the past few days is obviously pretty fluky (15-3 games don't grow on trees, even for good teams), but I can't remember the last time I've ever been this excited to watch the Pirates hit.

-P- The Cliffs Notes from the minors: Jeff Locke had a nice start for Altoona. Mel Rojas had two hits and Quinton Miller pitched five strong innings at State College. And Eric Avila went 3-for-5 and Wesley Freeman resurfaced in the Gulf Coast League.

-P- Kind of a fun item here: the Rangers apparently asked about Joel Hanrahan, and Neal Huntington said he wanted the amazing Neftali Feliz. I get that Huntington doesn't want to trade Hanrahan, and he shouldn't, either. But that trade proposal is ridiculous, and Huntington might consider at least trying to make an outlandish offer that the Rangers would at least consider. Feliz is 22 and he's already better than Hanrahan, so there's no reason the Rangers would do a one-for-one challenge trade like that.