National League 5, American League 1

This wasn't a particularly noteworthy game for the three Pirates involved, obviously - Kevin Correia didn't pitch, Andrew McCutchen got one at-bat and grounded out, and Joel Hanrahan got a strikeout and then saw a couple of batters reach base, in part due to some of the kind of fielding the Pirates haven't seen much of since, oh, 2010. But hey. Home-field advantage in the World Series! I'm sure the Bucs will be sure to send Prince Fielder a bottle of wine after they take a 2-0 lead in late October.

And yes, that's a joke.

-P- Speaking of jokes, one columnist for a Grove City paper said some silly stuff about Andrew McCutchen yesterday.

-P- I did a segment last night - just before the news of the Francisco Rodriguez trade broke - about the Pirates on a SIRIUS radio station based in Canada. Here's the clip. I come in at about the 27:00 mark (and there are briefly some audio problems around there, but they quickly stop). Be warned that there are some words sprinkled throughout that wouldn't make it onto American radio, and the segment before I come on is very much NSFW.

The host asked a question about putting the Pirates' attendance this year in perspective that I wasn't totally sure about. Just glancing through the attendance marks for the past decade, though, you probably have to go back to when PNC Park opened in 2001 to see the Pirates drawing like they have in the past few weeks.