Bob Pompeiani

I think 28 games or 27 games under .500.

Now, 3-3 on the road may not strike you as much in terms of .500 record.

What can you expect?

But it was on the road against two pretty good teams.

a team like the Mets which is expected to contend for the World Series they put a lot of money into their team and a team like the Reds who a lot of people have in the playoffs so I think going three and three is pretty no matter how they got there they went three and three and last year they were terrible on the road if they could somehow be around 500 or a little under but not a lot under 500 on the road I think they're going to be a team that you can

certainly expect to be competitive in this division.

So their home record was a good one and needs to be a little bit better.

But if you can get away from 27 games under .500 on a road, I think that makes a huge difference in what you do.

412-928-9370 is the number to call.

So tomorrow you're going to see Mitch Keller on the hill.

He will be your opening day pitcher there.

And Keller's been around for a long time, sort of a calming influence on this young staff.

I was very encouraged, I don't know about you, about seeing Braxton Ashcraft.

He looked totally in control of his game.

He gave up a couple of runs late before he departed, but given his entire body of work in control.

Bubba Chandler had an unusual line in his game.

Four and a third.

No hits, but he gave up a run.

Six walks, six strikeouts.

For Bubba Chandler to be the kind of pitcher that I think everyone in the Pirate organization believes he can be, you've got to make sure that he gets the ball in the zone.