The Rare No-Win No-No

Five baseball things!

Thing 1: Weird stuff happens when the Reds play the Pirates.

As I wrote last week, the Reds pitching staff had a first month for the ages. As of Thursday, before the Reds began a four-game series against Pittsburgh, they had a 6.65 team ERA, an incredible number made even more incredible by the fact that, basically, nobody’s hitting this season.

But there’s something about this year’s Pirates that these Reds like. It could be that the Pirates lineup — with two or three notable exceptions — is absolutely terrible. But the romantic in me thinks it’s something else. I want to believe we all have a soulmate. And I want to believe that out there in this big, wide, wonderful world, there’s a team that cannot hit the Cincinnati Reds.

Reds ERA against opponents this season: