The Sports Monitor

Pirates Nation can breathe a sigh of relief. Francisco Liriano erased the bad memories of Tuesday night's loss to the Cardinals with a complete-game gem Wednesday night. Liriano needed just 94 pitches to turn back the Cards in a 5-1 win. It was enough to forget Starling Marte's blunder in the ninth last night. Marte furthered his redemption with a two-run double to give the Pirates a 5-0 lead. The Pirates got a boost before Marte with homers from Garrett Jones and Pedro Alvarez. It's a big win to ease worries about any potential collapse. It was another superb start from Liriano. The Bucs now lead the Cards by three games in the NL Central and the Reds by 3.5 games.

Garrett Jones didn't hit a home run Thursday. So, naturally, the Pirates didn't beat the Los Angeles Dodgers either. It's too early to tell if Jones needs to hit a home run for the Pirates to win a game. But it is quite easy to determine that the Pirates team that took the field played like the one we saw all spring and the one that closed out the 2009 season with a 19-46 record. The pitching struggled, the hitting was spotty and the defense was bad, too. It's not what we were treated to for the first two games of the series. Maybe it's too much expecting a solid game from them against a Dodgers team that needed to get a win and a starting pitcher the caliber of Chad Billingsley. We knew the Pirates couldn't win them all, but a 3-0 start would have been on heck of a treat. Luckily, they won the opener, proving they weren't going to lose them all, either. We'll get a better idea of this team in the weeks ahead. And I have a hunch we'll g...

Today is a day to remember. A quick scan of the National League Central Division standings has the Pittsburgh Pirates in first place. There's no game today, so the perfect record will stay -- for now. But it won't last forever. A spot in first place won't, either. And a winning record? Nah. This team's not gonna do that. But for one day at least, the Pirates are in first place, thanks largely in part to Garrett Jones' two home runs. Jones smacked a tying two-run shot that bounced into the Allegheny and later hit one that had just enough on it to float into the left-field stands. The home runs turned around the game. The Pirates went from trailing 2-0 and ended up winning 11-5. How good of a day was it? The Post-Gazette's Ron Cook went from predicting a 59-win season on Saturday to comparing Jones to Albert Pujols after the win. I know the Bucs are perfect, but let's not get carried away. It's just one game, and Jones isn't going...