Cruds break!

 ... and let me start by saying, yes, I see you in the back there, with your hand already up.

"May I be excused Mr. Blob?" you're about to say. "I have a note from my Mom that says I don't have to listen to anymore of your boring Pittsburgh Pirates crap."

Fine, then. You're excused. But you're gonna miss a lot, and it'll all be on tomorrow's pop quiz.

You're gonna miss me saying I thought my Pirates were headed back to Crudsville after what happened on Easter Sunday, when they fell victim to a typical bit of Cruddy luck. What happened was, star shortstop Oneal Cruz slid awkwardly into homeplate, collided with the catcher, and fractured his ankle. So there goes the Cruds best player for a bunch of the summer.

But then the weird stuff started happening.

The Cruds did NOT, as expected, lose every game for the next week and move back into their accustomed residence, the NL Central cellar. They got walloped 8-2  the next day by the defending World Series champion Houston Astros, but then they beat the Astros 7-4 the day after that, and two days later they shut out the Cardinals 5-0. 

Now it's a week after Easter, and the Cruds are .500 since Cruz went down. They're three games above .500 at 9-6, and they're in second place in the division, just a game behind frontrunning Milwaukee.

And now I'm starting to have heretical thoughts.

I'm starting to think, 15 games into the season, that the Cruds might not be as Crud-like as usual.

I'm starting to think .500 might actually be their wheelhouse this summer. 

I'm starting to think they aren't going to haul off and lose ten games in a row, or 12 of their next 15, or something more traditionally Crud-like. I'm seeing that they've taken two of three headed into the last game of the Cardinal series, and that it's the Cardinals who are in the cellar right now, not the Cruds, and maybe that's a sign that baseball is going to tilt weirdly on its axis this season.

Shoot. I might even break out the Clemente jersey, the way things are going.

Uh-oh.

Was that the baseball gods I just heard, laughing and pointing?